The WHO was the “sole authority” that can classify new variants, according to the DOH.
DOH — The Department of Health said on Monday that the World Health Organization (WHO) was the “sole authority” that can classify new variants.
This, following reports of alleged COVID-19 variants “delmicron”, “deltacron”, and “flurona”.
In a statement, the Department of Health said that experts were still studying the supposed new COVID-19 variants.
“Currently, no recorded cases here in the Philippines,” the DOH said.
Infectious disease specialist Dr. Edsel Salvana earlier said that “flurona”, or a combination of the flu and the coronavirus disease, wasn’t unusual as it was recorded in the Philippines’ first COVID-19 patient.
The Department of Health earlier said that the “IHU” or B.1.640 variant was being studied by experts in Institut Hospitalier Universitaire in France.
READ ALSO: World Health Says Omicron may be Milder than Delta
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported on what was dubbed as the “Deltacron” variant first identified in Cyprus, which supposedly had mutations from both the omicron and delta variants.
“These are initial studies, ang WHO lang po ang pwedeng magclassify…sa ngayon wala pa pong sapat na ebidensiya but of course we will be always cautious kaya nandyan po ang ating border controls,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said last week.
ABS-CBN News reported that the delta variant remained the prevalent lineage of COVID-19 in the country with 8,497 cases as of January 6.
On Monday, the Philippines recorded 33,169 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of COVID-19 cases to 2,998,530.
Data from the health department showed that 99% of the 33,169 fresh cases occurred within the recent 14 days (from December 28, 2021 to January 10, 2022).
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