By Myris Lee
The Department of Health (DOH) said Saturday, June 4, that there is a “very high” chance that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant is currently being transmitted locally.
This after the DOH detected two cases of the subvariant on Friday, June 3.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, in the Laging Handa briefing, said both individuals had no prior travel history overseas so it “raises the index of suspicion” that this Omicron subvariant is already being transmitted locally.
“Kapag nagkakaroon na kasi tayo ng tao na nadedetekta natin ng ganitong variant dito sa ating community, the possibility that the transmission is local is very high kasi wala po silang outside the country na travel,” Vergeire said.
However, Vergie noted that there is still no community transmission of the BA.5 subvariant.
“Currently, we cannot say that there is really a community transmission. Because if we say community transmission, we could no longer see the linkage of one case to another. So far we could still determine the linkage,” Vergeire said.
The Health Undersecretary assured that the DOH will heighten their guard against the virus since the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants are more transmissible compared to other Omicron subvariants.
The first case of the BA.4 subvariant was detected in May. Both BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants are both tagged “variant of concern.” – gb
