339 more Delta cases recorded – DOH

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) recorded 339 new cases of the highly transmissible Delta variant of COVID-19 in the country yesterday.

At a press briefing, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the new cases detected by the Philippine Genome Center (PGC) bring to 3,366 the total Delta variant cases in the country.

Vergeire said the 339 new cases account for 45.3 percent of the 633 additional cases of P.3 and other variants of concern as sequenced by the PGC out of 748 swab samples.

A total of 186 or 24.9 percent of these are Beta variant cases and 98 or 13.1 percent Alpha variant cases; nine or 1.2 percent, P.3 variant cases, and one was a Gamma variant case.

“This batch is included in the retrospective samples from the months of April to June 2021 to help in our epidemiologic and phylogenetic analysis and mapping that DOH is doing with PGC,” Vergeire said.

Data show there is now a total of 2,920 Beta variant cases; 2,559 Alpha variant cases; 461 P.3 variant cases and three Gamma variant cases.

Among the 633 variant cases, 609 are local cases, 17 are returning overseas Filipinos and seven still for verification.

The DOH said 616 of these cases are listed as recovered, 10 died, five are active cases and two still being verified of their clinical statuses.

Military doctors, nurses

Military medical personnel are already prepared for deployment to different hospitals struggling with a lack of staff to handle COVID-19 patients, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said yesterday.

Col. Fatima Claire Navarro, AFP surgeon general, said an agreement with the DOH and hospitals requesting assistance will be finalized for details on the fielding of military doctors and nurses.

Navarro said the document would define the specific number of military doctors, nurses and nursing aides to be deployed as needed by hospitals concerned and the duration of their services.

The agreement, which will be implemented by the AFP Health Service Command as guided by the Office of the Surgeon General, “will further define the scope of cooperation and is borne out of the experiences and exigencies of our two agencies, such as our deployment of AFP medical teams and personnel to augment efforts in Cebu and Davao,” she said.

Recently, President Duterte asked Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana to prepare AFP medical personnel for deployment to hospitals in need of more medical staff.

Likewise, licensed nurses serving in the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) have been deployed to augment the workforce in private hospitals dealing with big COVID-19 caseloads.

Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya, Department of the Interior and Local Government spokesman, said a total of 154 BFP nurses were deployed to 27 hospitals nationwide to augment short-staffed facilities even before President Duterte’s directive to the uniformed services.

“We want to assure the President that he can rely on the BFP in the augmentation of understaffed hospitals. On top of the currently deployed BFP nurses, we still have 14 remaining licensed nurses to be deployed,” he said.

Malaya said that seven other hospitals have also requested for the services of uniformed nurses.

In the National Capital Region, 18 BFP nurses were deployed since Aug. 31. Twelve of them were split between the Muntinlupa and Las Piñas City Health Offices as vaccinators, and six others joining the nursing staff of the Medical Center Muntinlupa.

The other nurses are deployed in various hospitals nationwide, including Cagayan Valley, Mimaropa (Mindoro provinces, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan or Region 4B), Bicol, Western and Eastern Visayas regions and Davao region. – Michael Punongbayan, Romina Cabrera

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