DOH: Philippines’ first UK variant fatality had comorbidity

The 84-year-old man from La Trinidad, Benguet who became the country’s first fatality linked to the UK coronavirus variant had a comorbidity, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said Tuesday.

“The history says that he never left the house but we have to understand that he also has comorbid conditions. He had asthma,” Vergeire told CNN-Philippines.

The health official said the patient’s diagnosis when he died was related to asthma.

“When he was swabbed before he died, it turned out that he was positive so his sample was sent to the Philippine Genome Center (PGC),” she added.

The Department of Health announced last week that the patient died on January 24. 

His 15-year-old female relative was also found to have the UK variant.

“We are still looking at his contacts because in that specific area we also have a person who was identified with the variant but we cannot establish the linkage with this person so we are still getting other information,” Vergeire said.

Twenty-two of the 25 UK variant patients have already recovered from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) while two cases remain active. 

The PGC will sequence over 700 samples this week to detect other cases of the UK variant.

The B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is known to be more transmissible. Preliminary evidence also suggests that it could make the respiratory disease more severe. 

The country has recorded 538,995 COVID-19 infections with 499,772 recoveries and 11,231 deaths as of Monday afternoon.  — RSJ, GMA News