UK coronavirus variant already in Philippines on Dec. 10, a month before DOH reported 1st case -expert

The more infectious variant of COVID-19 virus has been in the Philippines as early as December 2020 at a time when it was not still considered a new variant, according to the Department of Health (DOH).

At a virtual briefing on Saturday, DOH Epidemiology Bureau director Alethea de Guzman said that of the 16 new cases detected with the B.1.1.7 variant of the SARS-COV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, one sample was collected on December 10, 2020.

This was days before British scientists first reported the mutation to the World Health Organization.

The Health official said the sample was collected from a 23-year-old male patient from Laguna.

Despite this, the DOH only announced that the UK variant has been detected in the Philippines on January 13, 2021 from a male resident of Quezon City who left for Dubai on December 27 for business purposes and returned to the country on January 7 aboard an Emirates flight.

Dr. Edsel Salvana, director of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology of the UP National Institutes of Health, said that the December 10 sample was part of those which were “archived” for backtracking for the then unknown variant.

Salvana, a member of the DOH’s technical advisory group on COVID-19 variants, said at the time when the sample was collected it is till not yet considered as the “UK variant.”

"This person probably entered the country dala niya 'yung UK variant, pero hindi pa identified na UK variant 'yon,” he said.

“Hindi pa naa-announce na ito ang problema. But, part of our due diligence was to look back. Pero aside from that, wala from anywhere else," he added.

The DOH, late Friday, disclosed that there are now 17 cases of COVID-19 who have the UK variant in the Philippines after the first who arrived from the United Arab Emirates earlier in January.

Of the additional 16 cases, three have recovered while 13 are still active. Of the 13 active cases, three are asymptomatic while the remaining 10 have mild symptoms.

The B.1.1.7 variant of the novel coronavirus, first detected in the United Kingdom, has been found to be more infectious but does not make the disease more severe.

Twelve of the 16 additional cases are from Bontoc in the Mountain Province, two are OFWs returning from Lebanon, two are from La Trinidad in Benguet and Calamba in Laguna.

The DOH said that out of the 12 cases in Bontoc, seven are male and five are female. Three are aged below 18 years old and another three are above 60. -MDM, GMA News