DOH: PH now has 58 cases of South African COVID-19 variant; 52 new cases detected

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Health (DOH) Friday reported 52 new cases of the B.1.351 COVID-19 variant from South Africa, bringing the total number of cases in the Philippines to 58.

The DOH, in a statement, said that 41 of the new patients have addresses in the National Capital Region (NCR), while 11 patients are being verified if they are local cases or are returning overseas Filipinos (ROFs).

According to the DOH, one patient with the South African COVID-19 variant from the NCR has now recovered. Meanwhile, the other 51 cases remain active and are being managed.

It was on Tuesday when the DOH first reported the emergence of the South African variant in the country with six cases—four of which were from Pasay City.

31 new UK variant cases

Meanwhile, the DOH also reported 31 additional cases of the B.1.1.7 variant of COVID-19 from the United Kingdom (UK).

This brings the country’s total of UK variant cases to 118, the DOH added.

Of the 31 new cases, 28 have indicative addresses from NCR, while three cases are being verified if these are either local cases or ROFs.

“All 31 are active cases,” the DOH said.

42 cases of ‘mutations of potential clinical significance’

The DOH also said that there were 42 cases of the N501Y and E484K mutations, now dubbed as “mutations of potential clinical significance.”

Thirty-four of the new cases have indicative addresses in Region 7, while six cases have indicative addresses in the NCR. The remaining two cases are still being verified either as local cases or ROFs.

“Twenty-two of the 34 cases from Region 7 is now recovered. Meanwhile, the remaining 12 Region 7 cases, all six NCR cases, and both cases being verified are tagged as active cases,” the DOH said.

As of March 4, the Philippines has 584,667 COVID-19 cases, with 535,037 recoveries and 12,404 deaths.

On Thursday, the Philippines received its first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines developed by British-Swede drugmaker AstraZeneca that were sent by the COVAX Facility. Before this, 600,000 doses of vaccines from China’s Sinovac Biotech which were donated by the government of China arrived on Sunday.

/MUF