By Christine Fabro
The expansion of genome sequencing capacity in the Philippines is underway, the Department of Health Technical Advisory Group (DOH-TAG) said on Monday (August 2).
In a Malacañang public briefing, infectious disease expert Dr. Edward Salvana said the genome sequencing is “retrospective”, which guides the Health department’s response to the current COVID-19 surge.
“We really want it to be cast as a random, or a sample, so that we have a wide net and we know where it’s spreading,” Salvana said.
Salvana said that no country has tested every single sample as genome sequencing is “too expensive.”
DOH-TAG said stricter border controls led to a linear increase of Delta variant cases in the Philippines instead of a rapid spread of the virus.
“In the Philippines, with our enhanced border controls we saw naman na it took a while before finally nakapasok sa community and the increase of Delta is actually linear, it’s not exponential. [This] means that what we’re doing is slowing it down,” Salvana said.
Agreeing, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said there has been a “vigorous testing” among individuals which enabled proactive measures to isolate and treat COVID-19 cases.
“I don’t think there’s a lack of foresight because even we don’t know the specific type of COVID-19 that is infecting our people, alam natin na who is at least infected at alam mo kahit ano pang variant iyan, pareho naman ang protocol – isolation, contact tracing, and treatment,” Roque said. – rir
