MANILA – The first XBB.1.5 infection detected in the country is a local case, a health official said Tuesday.
“Itong XBB.1.5 na case is a Filipino, local siya na detection, there were no histories of any type of travel, unknown ‘yung kanyang exposure (This XBB.1.5 case is a Filipino, it’s a local detection, there were unknown histories of travel, the exposure is unknown),” said Department of Health (DOH) officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire in a media briefing.
The DOH reported the first case of XBB.1.5 and three cases of CH.1.1, which were part of the 1,078 samples sequenced by the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) and the University of the Philippines-Philippine Genome Center on Jan. 28 to Feb. 3.
The XBB.1.5 subvariant of Omicron is a mutation of the BA.2.
“Nagkaroon lang siya ng konting mga sintomas na mild, nagkalagnat, sumakit ang mga kasu-kasuan (The case only had few mild symptoms and had fever and joint pains). But right now, already recovered,” Vergeire said.
She noted the specimen was collected last Jan. 9.
“So, ‘pag binilang labing-apat na araw, sa 23, we were available to identify all of his contacts, all were asymptomatic, and sa ngayon, tapos na rin kung saka-sakali ang stage where they need to quarantine para lang mapigilan ang transmission nung sakit (So, if we count, it’s 14 days on 23, we were able to identify all of his contacts, all were asymptomatic, and now, the stage where they need to quarantine to prevent the transmission of the disease is over),” she added.
As for the CH.1.1 subvariant which has mutation similar to Delta, BA.4 and BA.5, Vergeire said the World Health Organization has already classified it as a variant under monitoring.
“They are estimating or forecasting na ito po ay kakalat sa (that this will spread to) United Kingdom in the coming weeks,” she said.
However, experts have not yet seen its capacity to cause more severe infections as other countries have not reported on it yet.
“Here in the country, we’re trying to monitor closely kung meron bang uptick dito sa (if there is uptick in the) severe and critical, and up to now, our cases are at plateau for severe and critical cases. It’s less than 10 percent always in all of our hospitals,” Vergeire said.
She emphasized that the severe and critical cases are manageable, and the country has safeguards and strengthened surveillance to monitor new variants which may enter the country.
As of Feb. 12, the DOH reported that only 13.9 percent or 311 out of the 2,243 intensive care unit (ICU) beds are in use, while 19.6 percent or 3,402 of 17,344 non-ICU beds are utilized. (PNA)
