PROSPERIDAD, Agusan del Sur—At least eight local residents in this province have been infected with the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, the Provincial Health Office (PHO) said.
Of the eight cases, seven are residents of San Francisco town and Bayugan City.
Those from San Francisco town were from Barangay 1, Barangay 4 and Barangay Tagapua while those from Bayugan City were from Barangay Charito.
Chrisan Ranario, PHO information officer, said the samples of the eight patients were sent to the Philippine Genome Center last July for genome sequencing after laboratory technicians from D.O. Plaza Memorial Hospital Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory found high viral loads from their swabs during reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction test.
The PHO has already subjected the eight cases to renewed health monitoring and those of their known close contacts.