DOH: 80 more cases of Omicron subvariants detected in PH

Eighty additional cases of various Omicron subvariants were detected in the Philippines, according to the Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday.

The DOH’s latest COVID-19 biosurveillance report on the samples sequenced on June 13 showed that 54 cases were classified as Omicron XBB subvariant, which were all found in Western Visayas.

These included 22 cases of XBB.1.16; nine XBB.1.5; eight XBB.1.9.1; five XBB.2.3; and four XBB.1.9.2.

Meanwhile, there were 25 cases of BA.2.3.20 —18 of which from Western Visayas, and seven from the Cordillera Administrative Region.

One was a case of another Omicron sublineage that was not identified.

There were also two more cases found with no assigned lineage.

Of these, XBB.1.5 which now has a total of 549 detected cases in the Philippines, and XBB.1.16 which has a total of 265 local cases, are considered as variants of interest (VOI) by the World Health Organization (WHO).

XBB.1.9.1, XBB.2.3, and XBB.1.9.2, on the other hand, are tagged as variants under monitoring (VUM) by the WHO.

The DOH said VOI refers to COVID-19 variants with “genetic changes that are predicted or known to affect variant characteristics,” while VUM refers to those with “genetic changes that are suspected to affect virus characteristics and early signals of growth advantage relative to other circulating variants.”

On Monday, the DOH announced the detection of the first case of FE.1 or XBB.1.18.1.1, which was added to the list of variants under monitoring by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control on June 1, 2023.

The government on Wednesday officially launched the bivalent COVID-19 vaccination in the Philippines. These jabs give protection against the original COVID-19 strain, SARS-CoV-2, and Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News