DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 10 August) – Two more cases of the Delta variant of COVID-19 were detected in Region 11, bringing the total number of infections by this highly transmissible strain in the area to eight as of Tuesday, the Department of Health (DOH)-Davao said.
The agency said both cases, who arrived in Manila from abroad last July 6 were isolated after testing positive for COVID-19.
One of the two cases is a 25-year-old female from Saudi Arabia who tested negative based on her reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test before her flight to Manila.
She was quarantined at The Manila Times College of Subic but was transferred to an isolation facility for 10 days when her repeat swab test taken last July 13 yielded a positive result.
After being tagged as recovered, she flew last July 24 to Davao International Airport where she was picked up by a bus and transported back to her hometown in Carmen, Davao Del Norte.
Upon arrival in her hometown, she was placed in a temporary treatment and monitoring facility and re-swabbed last July 26. Her RT-PCR test result showed she was cleared of COVID-19.
The other case is a 51-year-old male traveler from Zambia, Africa who was quarantined in a hotel in Makati. His RT-PCR test on July 12 also yielded positive results, prompting health authorities to put him in an isolation facility in Manila where he stayed for another seven days.
Also, the DOH-Davao reported a total of 318 cases of variants of concern from among the specimens submitted by the region for sequencing to the University of the Philippines-Philippine Genome Center in Diliman, Quezon City.
But the agency has yet to provide a breakdown of the variant cases in the region.
It may be recalled that the Alpha and Beta variants, which surfaced in the United Kingdom and South Africa, respectively, were also detected in the region.
The Delta variant was first detected in India.
As of August 9, DOH-Davao reported 57,292 cases with 6,693 active, 48,696 recoveries, and 1,903 deaths.
Of the total cases, Davao City, the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mindanao, logged 31,951 infections with 3,019 active, 27,860 recoveries and 1,072 deaths. Davao de Oro tallied 4,384 cases, Davao del Norte 10,928, Davao del Sur 4,881, Davao Occidental 1,252, and Davao Oriental 3,896. (Antonio L. Colina IV/MindaNews)
