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Zamboanga Sibugay is among the Mindanao provinces that has managed to keep its COVID-19 cases relatively low, but the detection of one highly transmissible variant of the virus could change things.
The local government has discovered a case of the COVID-19 Delta variant in the province’s capital town of Ipil, the municipal health office confirmed on Saturday, August 7.
Dr. Adnilre Verzon, the health officer of Ipil, said the carrier first tested positive for COVID-19 on June 28. It took over a month before a genome sequencing laboratory confirmed that it was a Delta variant case.
Verzon said the result of the genome sequencing analysis came out on Friday, August 6, after the carrier was certified recovered.
Zamboanga Sibugay registered the lowest number of COVID-19 cases, at only 76, among the region’s three provinces in the last two weeks, based on the latest data from the Department of Health (DOH) as of Friday.
The DOH data showed that Zamboanga del Sur accounted for 351 cases while Zamboanga del Norte logged 192 during the two-week period.
Verzon downplayed the threat, saying that “there is no reason to panic because it is no longer an active case.”
Verzon called for calm but urged officials and residents of Zamboanga Sibugay to be vigilant because of the possibility that there were more Delta variant carriers in the province.
“We will consider [the possibility] of new cases of Delta variant,” she said.
Verzon also called for a stepped up vaccination rollout in the province, and for residents to get inoculated to increase their fighting chances against COVID-19.
The town has logged a total of 596 COVID-19 cases since 2020, with 17 active cases as of August 5.
Yet the health department categorized Ipil as one of the five high-risk municipalities in Zamboanga Sibugay. The other four are the towns of Tungawan, Titay, Imelda, and Buug.
Zamboanga Sibugay is a province in the Zamboanga Peninsula region. It has recorded a total of 1,973 COVID-19 cases since 2020, with 63 active cases as of August 5. – Rappler.com
Antonio Manaytay is a Mindanao-based journalist and an awardee of the 2021 Aries Rufo Journalism Fellowship.
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