DAVAO Region’s first case of the highly contagious Delta variant (B.1.617.2) of the Covid-19 was reported on Saturday, July 24, 2021.
Tagum City Health Office Chief Dr. Arnel Florendo confirmed on Saturday evening that the city now has its first confirmed case of the Delta variant.
This was based on the information given to them by the Department of Health (DOH).
Florendo also confirmed that Tagum now has 12 cases of the Alpha variant and 22 cases of the Beta variant.
He added that they still have 90 suspected cases of variants of concern under investigation and monitoring.
The city government, in a separate Facebook post, said they will provide additional details in the coming days as they are still awaiting specific details from DOH.
The local government also reminded the public to "triple" their precautionary measures as the Delta variant is highly contagious compared to other variants.
In an information provided by the Philippine Information Agency (PIA), Florendo said the patient positive with the Delta variant has already recovered.
The health official, according to the PIA, said the swab sample of the patient was submitted for genomic sequencing between May or June.
Florendo added they are currently conducting contact tracing to those who had close contact with the patient to determine the timeline of the cause of transmission.
Meanwhile, in a report from dxDC RMN Davao, DOH Undersecretary Leopoldo Vega confirmed that Davao City already recorded its first case of Delta variant. However, it was not stated when the first case of the Delta variant was recorded in Davao City.
According to the report, Vega said there is a need to implement an “aggressive prevention” against the new strain of the virus, by intensifying the implementation of the minimum health public standards, contact tracing, and isolation.
As of Sunday afternoon, DOH-Davao has not yet provided any information, particularly the case profile of the Delta-infected patients to the media.
Davao City Covid-19 Task Force spokesperson Dr. Michelle Schlosser told SunStar Davao in a text message that they are also still waiting for the official report from DOH.
DOH confirmed on July 16 the first cases of Delta variant in the Philippines.
As of July 24, additional Delta variant cases have been detected in the country, bringing the total number of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases with this highly transmissible variant to 64.
DOH said the newly detected cases consist of 12 local cases, one returning overseas Filipino (ROF) and four under verification.
Of the 12 local cases, nine indicated addresses in the National Capital Region, while three were from Calabarzon.
Three remain active while 14 have been tagged as recovered. Regional and local DOH offices are still validating each patient’s status.
The University of the Philippines’ Philippine Genome Center (PGC) also detected 11 Alpha (B.1.1.7) variant cases, 13 Beta (B.1.351) variant cases and two Theta (P.3) variant cases among the latest batch of coronavirus-positive samples subjected to whole-genome sequencing.
Seven Alpha patients and two Beta patients had died.
Of the 11 Alpha cases, 10 were local cases and one was under verification. One remained active, seven died and three were tagged as recovered.
Of the additional 13 Beta variant cases, 10 were local and three were being verified. One was still active, two died and 10 recovered.
One of the two P.3 cases is a local case while the other is being verified. Both have recovered.
There are now 1,679 Alpha variant cases, 1,840 Beta variant cases and 235 P.3 cases in the country.
These sequencing results don’t include yet the samples collected from the crewmembers of the vessel from Indonesia that is docked in Albay. These will be included in the next batch, DOH said.
The variant, first identified in India in February, is believed to be 60 percent more contagious than the Alpha (B.1.1.7) variant, which was first detected in the United Kingdom, according to the World Health Organization.
Public Health England in May 2021 observed secondary attack rates to be 51 to 67 percent higher than the alpha variant. In a June technical briefing, the Delta variant was linked to a roughly doubling of the risk in hospitalization. (With reports from SunStar Philippines)