THE Department of Health (DOH) on Monday, August 16, 2021, said phylogenetic analysis is still ongoing to identify the sources of infections caused by the highly transmissible Delta variant of Sars-CoV-2.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, in a press conference Monday, declined to confirm the statement about Delta outbreaks in Mindanao being caused by infected returning overseas Filipinos (ROF) who came home though Mactan Cebu International Airport.
“No’ng sinulat ito ni Dr. Edsel, that was a personal or an independent comment from somebody who is also an expert on this matter,” Vergeire said, referring to Dr. Edsel Salvana.
Salvana is the director of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at the University of the Philippines National Institutes of Health and a member of the DOH Technical Advisory Group.
In his recent newspaper column, Salvana said their analysis showed that some of the Delta outbreaks in Mindanao could be linked to ROFs who entered the country via Cebu, which implemented a less stringent quarantine policy until President Rodrigo Duterte insisted on uniform arrival rules nationwide.
“Sa ngayon, patuloy pa ho ang pag-aaral natin. Iniisa-isa po natin ang mga common sources ng mga variants of concern that have come in the country. So we cannot confirm yet, right now. We are continuing our studies on this,” Vergeire said.
In a social media post Sunday, Salvana said he merely highlighted one of the findings in their phylogenetic analysis.
He said he will defer to the DOH and the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, the DOH-led policy-making body on the government’s coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) response, the release of the data.
“DNA/RNA does not lie. When we say one case is linked to another, there is robust data to back that up. We use supercomputers to construct genetic linkages, and with whole genome sequencing, these tools are as powerful as ever,” he said.
“Many of these phylogenetic trees have been presented in public fora. I merely highlighted one of the findings. The full detailed data is available, but I will defer to DOH and IATF whether they see fit to release it,” he added. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)