Health Secretary Francisco Duque III. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on Tuesday assured the public that the reportedly more infectious Lambda variant of COVID-19 has not reached the Philippines.
He said the World Health Organization (WHO) considered the Lambda strain only as a “variant of interest” that required more scientific study.
The Lambda variant emerged in December in Peru and has since been reported in about 20 to 30 other countries. Still, Duque called for stricter border controls to prevent the entry of the new variant into the country.
“We should continue strengthening our border controls so that this variant cannot enter our country,” Duque said, adding that all returning overseas Filipinos, as well as anyone arriving in the country, must follow quarantine procedures.
Those entering the Philippines are required to undergo a 14-day quarantine, with 10 days spent in a government-identified facility and the remaining days in their homes. Incoming passengers are also required to take an RT-PCR test on the seventh day of their quarantine.
Higher risk Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe, the WHO representative to the Philippines, said Filipinos should remain wary of the more contagious Delta variant, despite the Department of Health (DOH) earlier declaring the country to be “low risk” based on falling numbers of new COVID cases and health-care utilization.
Health officials said there was still no local transmission of the Delta variant, since all the 19 cases of that variant recorded by the DOH involved returning overseas Filipinos.
The DOH on Tuesday said it recorded 4,114 new cases of COVID-19, which brought the country’s total case count to 1,445,832. In its daily case bulletin, the DOH said there remained 49,613 active cases or currently sick individuals.
The DOH said another 6,086 patients had recovered from the respiratory illness, which increased the number of survivors to 1,370,923. However, another 104 have died of the disease, pushing the country’s death toll from COVID-19 to 25,296.