DOH: Only BARMM without COVID-19 Delta variant

MANILA, Philippines — The COVID-19 Delta variant has been detected in all regions except in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), the Department of Health (DOH) said Thursday.

The DOH earlier said that the highly transmissible variant has already been detected in all regions except in Caraga.

Dr. Alethea De Guzman, OIC-Director of the DOH Epidemiology Bureau, however, said that BARMM is the only region without a local Delta case.

“Sa ngayon, BARMM na lamang po ang hindi na natin nadedectan ng local Delta case. ‘Yun ay maaaring dahil sa kaunting samples na nakukuha natin from that region,” she said in an online media briefing.

(Right now, only BARMM has no detected local Delta case. This is because of the low number of samples we get from that region.)

The DOH earlier said that BARMM is among the regions having problems in sending samples for genome sequencing due to transportation concerns.

De Guzman said all regions and all Metro Manila cities either have the Alpha or Beta variant.

Meanwhile, the P.3 variant, first detected in the Philippines is now present in all regions.

The variant, previously classified as a variant of interest, was downgraded by the World Health Organization as an “alert for further monitoring.”

The DOH earlier said that community transmission of the Delta variant is already being observed in Metro Manila and Calabarzon.  

The Philippines is battling a renewed surge in COVID-19 cases in August following the detection of more cases of the Delta variant and other variants of concern. The country has 125,378 active cases of the disease as of Wednesday, according to DOH data.

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