MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines has recorded another 52 cases of an extremely contagious coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa, the Ministry of Health said on Friday that it presents new challenges for a country that is one of Asia has its worst outbreaks.
From the new cases of the variant, known as B.1.351, the Ministry of Health said that 41 have been detected in Manila while the origin of the others is still being confirmed. The Philippines only reported six cases of the variant on Tuesday.
The country in Southeast Asia began its vaccination on Monday, but health experts are worried that the discovery of new variants could hamper the effort.
Health authorities also reported 31 more infections on Friday from a variant first identified in Britain, which increased the total to 118.
In addition to the two variants, the Ministry of Health said it had detected another 42 cases of “mutations of potential clinical importance” in samples collected from the Philippines who had returned from overseas and residents in Manila and the central Philippines.
The Philippines’ Ministry of Health on Friday reported 3,045 new cases of COVID-19, the highest daily increase in more than four months.
President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday called for the safety of COVID-19 shots when he called on the public to be vaccinated as soon as possible, saying it was the key to reopening an economy that had its sharpest contraction. in 2020.
The Philippine supply of 600,000 vaccines manufactured by Chinese Sinovac Biotech was boosted with the arrival on Thursday of more than 480,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine secured by the COVAX facility.
The Philippines is slower than some neighbors launching vaccines after the shortage of supplies hampered the government’s efforts to secure millions of doses to vaccinate 70 million of its 108 million people this year, in an effort to boost herd immunity effected.
(Edited by Neil Jerome Morales; Edited by Ed Davies)