The Philippines now has 1,087,885 confirmed cases of COVID-19 after 7,733 new infections were reported on Friday, May 7.

The Department of Health (DOH) also announced 4,227 new recoveries, raising the country’s total recoveries to 1,003,160. Meanwhile, deaths are up by 108, bringing total fatalities to 18,099.

The DOH also reported a positivity rate of 14.1% out of 50,815 tests in its bulletin. These positive cases are added to the tally of confirmed cases only after further validation. This process helps ensure that cases would not be recorded in duplicate, and that all test results had been submitted, explained the department.

The DOH announced on Friday morning that of the 21 Filipino crew members aboard MV Athens Bridge from India, 12 tested positive for COVID-19, including two seafarers who are in critical condition.

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said all positive samples would be subjected to genome sequencing to check the presence of the B1617 variant of COVID-19, which is believed to be driving the surge in infections in India.

Meanwhile, Dr Rontgene Solante, chief of the Adult Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine unit at the San Lazaro Hospital, said the Philippines was testing a “very small” number of samples for the presence of the new variants of COVID-19.

Solante, an infectious disease expert and member of the country’s vaccine expert panel, said it was difficult to assess if the more infectious variants of COVID-19 are the most dominant variant in the country now.

“We don’t know yet if the B1351 is the dominant variant kasi ‘yung nasample ng PGC (Philippine Genome Center) napakaliit lang niyan (because the Philippine Genome Center was only able to test a very small number of samples),” Solante said.

The DOH said it was studying the possibility of “mixing” different COVID-19 vaccine brands to see if the combination of brands would provide additional immune response. New variants of COVID-19, such as B1351 (first found in South Africa), are reported to have an impact on vaccine efficacy. – Rappler.com