83% of random samples analyzed in August positive for Delta variant: PGC
After the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Delta variant as the dominant COVID-19 variant in the country, the Philippine Genome Center (PGC) said 83 percent of the random samples analyzed in August were found positive for highly transmissible kind of coronavirus.
"For the month of July, the swab samples we sequenced for the month of July nationally, around 48 percent of our samples are Delta variants. So, that is 48 percent of about 2,582 samples which we collected in July," Cynthia Saloma, PGC executive director said during the ''Laging Handa'' public briefing on Friday.
"In August, it increased but the number of swabs we recorded for August is still little, so we have analyzed nationally based... around 542 swabs for August, around 83 percent of this little amount of samples are Delta variants nationally," she added.
Although the samples analyzed for August is small, Saloma said based on their analysis the Delta variant recorded in the National Capital Region in July reached 76 percent and greater than 90 percent in the previous month.
"We have analyzed a lot of samples from NCR on July, around 593 cases and we see that 76 percent of these 593 cases, sequenced samples from NCR are Delta variants ," she said.
Saloma said the result of the latest samples analyzed by the PGC will be released soon. Robina Asido/DMS
