‘Case closed,’ DOH says of UK Covid-19 variant patient in Quezon City

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) considers the case of infection of a 29-year-old male resident in Quezon City as “closed” in terms of contact tracing, weeks after he was confirmed as the first local patient to have had a more infectious variant of the new coronavirus.

DOH undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an online press briefing on Monday that all close contacts of the patient had tested negative for the B117 variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. The said variant was first detected in the United Kingdom.

“Closed na ba ito (Is this case closed)? Yes, with regards to contact tracing. We have already closed it because we were already able to identify all those close contacts and naipatest naman natin sila (and they were all tested),” Vergeire said.

“They were all quarantined also, they were monitored, and the results for the genome sequencing were all negative. Yes, it is closed na (already) when it comes to contact tracing,” she added.

Vergeire also reiterated that the UK variant case in Quezon City is not related to 16 other cases of the new coronavirus variant that were detected in other parts of the country.

The Quezon City government announced last January 22 that the patient has already tested negative for Covid-19 in his latest swab test but will remain under monitoring for at least two weeks.

The patient departed for Dubai on December 27 for business purposes and arrived in the Philippines last January 7. On January 13, the DOH confirmed that he has tested positive for the B117 variant of SARS-CoV-2.

JE