8 Delta variant carriers yield positive for virus during retesting — DOH

MANILA, Philippines — Eight of the retested COVID-19 Delta variant carriers, who were recently detected in the country, had been tested positive for the virus, the Department of Health (DOH) said Tuesday.

“Nung nag-retest po tayo among these local cases and returning overseas Filipinos (ROF), we found na meron pa rin pong positive sa kanila,” DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire told reports in an online forum.

(When we retested these local cases and the returning overseas Filipinos, we found that some of them still tested positive for the virus.)

“There are a total of eight individuals who turned positive with retesting,” she added.

The DOH recently detected 16 Delta variant cases, 11 of which were local cases while five were ROFs.

These cases, Vergeire said, were earlier tagged as recovered by their respective local governments.

“At the outset sinabi, recovered sila [they were tagged as recovered] based on the reports of our local government units kasi nga sila ay nakakumpleto na ng paga-isolate, ng kanilang pagka-quarantine ng 14 apat na araw [because they had completed the isolation and 14-day quarantine],” Vergeire noted.

But eight cases still yielded positive results when retested, including one in Manila, four in Cagayan de Oro, one in Misamis Oriental and two ROFs.

The eight who tested positive are not showing any symptoms but will be under isolation until they test negative for the virus, according to Vergeire.

“Mababa na yung viral load sa katawan and therefore most likely, di na sila ganoon ka-infectious,” she said.

(The viral load in their bodies are not that high and therefore most likely, they’re not that infectious anymore.)

“But of course we would still like to be very sure that’s why they are now in quarantine pa rin po at binabantayan pa rin po natin sila [that is why they remain under quarantine and we are monitoring them],” she added.

In total, the DOH has so far recorded 35 Delta variant cases. Three of whom have died.

According to Vergeire, the DOH is still verifying the vaccination status of one of the fatalities: a 63-year-old male seafarer from the MV Athens, who died on May 19.

Meanwhile, the two others who died have not been vaccinated prior to their death, she added.

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