By Vann Marlo M. Villegas and Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza, Reporters
HEALTH authorities on Tuesday reported 30 more patients who got infected with a more contagious coronavirus variant from the United Kingdom and six more people who got sick with a variant from South Africa.
“While there is no evidence that this variant causes a more severe disease, the pattern of mutations within this variant suggests higher transmissibility and may have an impact on vaccine efficacy,” the Department of Health (DoH) said in a statement, referring to the South African variant.
Of the six cases, three patients came from Pasay City, two of them — a 61-year-old woman and a 39-year-old man — were active cases. The third, a 40-year-old male, has recovered, the agency said.
The status of two more patients who came home from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar were still being verified, as well as the sixth case.
The 30 more cases of the UK COVID-19 variant brought the total in the Philippines to 87, DoH said. Of the 30, 20 were returning migrant Filipinos, three were locals, and seven were still being verified.
The 20 migrant workers came home from the Middle East, Singapore and United States between Jan. 20 and Feb. 16. Thirteen of them were active cases but were not showing symptoms, while seven have recovered, DoH said.
The three locals came from the Cordillera Administrative Region, one of whom is an active case admitted to a hospital, one has recovered and one died.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario S. Vergeire said both the South African and United Kingdom variants are more contagious. The South Africa variant’s mutation might affect vaccine efficacy, she added.
The vaccine developed by British drug maker AstraZeneca Plc is less effective against the South African variant based on trial data, Reuters reported last month.
TALLY
Meanwhile, the Health department reported 2,067 coronavirus infections on Tuesday, bringing the total to 580,442. The death toll rose by 47 to 12,369, while recoveries increased by 144 to 534,463, it said in a bulletin.
There were 33,610 active cases, 89.8% of which were mild, 4.8% did not show symptoms, 2.3% were critical, 2.2% were severe and 0.85% were moderate.
DoH said six duplicates had been removed from the tally, while 30 recovered cases were reclassified as deaths. Eight laboratories failed to submit data on March 1.
About 8.3 million Filipinos have been tested for the coronavirus as of Feb. 28, according to DoH’s tracker website.
The coronavirus has sickened more than 115 million and killed about 2.6 million people worldwide, according to the Worldometers website, citing various sources including data from the World Health Organization.
About 90.8 million people have recovered, it said.
Also on Tuesday, DoH said 756 people got CoronaVac shots on the first day of the vaccination program on Monday in six Metro Manila hospitals.
It said 128 people got vaccinated at the Philippine General Hospital, 85 at Dr. Jose N. Rodriguez Memorial hospital and 20 at the Lung Center of the Philippines.
It added that 110 people got inoculated at the Philippine National Police General Hospital, 353 at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center and 60 at Victoriano Luna Medical Center.
Ms. Vergeire said 13 people experienced higher blood pressure, headaches, nausea or pain in the injection area. None of them were admitted to hospitals and were sent home after observation.
More than 215,000 health frontliners from both public and private hospitals would get vaccine shots made by Chinese drug maker Sinovac Biotech Ltd. this quarter, presidential spokesman Herminio L. Roque, Jr. told a televised news briefing.
Of the 600,000 CoronaVac donated by China, the capital region got 130,742 doses, he said. It was followed by Central Visayas with 13,923 doses, Central Luzon with 11,537, Soccsksargen with 8,705, Western Visayas with 8,438 and the Davao Region with 8,004.
Northern Mindanao will get 7,239 doses, Eastern Visayas 3,935, the Zamboanga Peninsula 3,417, Cordillera Administrative Region 3,279, Caraga 3,044, Calabarzon 1,115 and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim in Mindanao (BARMM) 940.
Mr. Roque said 756 medical workers and government employees from Metro Manila got vaccinated on Monday.
Vaccine czar Carlito G. Galvez, Jr. said the St. Luke’s Medical Center had asked the National Government for an allocation of 5,000 vials of the Chinese vaccine.
Mr. Roque said private hospitals are also on the government’s priority list.
Meanwhile, the first batch of AstraZeneca vaccines under a global initiative for equal access would arrive this month, Vivencio B. Dizon, deputy chief enforcer of the state’s anti-coronavirus efforts told the same briefing.
He said they still did not know when the vaccines from Pfizer, Inc. would arrive. The government failed to take delivery of about 117,000 doses after it failed to sign papers freeing the drug maker from potential lawsuits on time.
