MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines recorded 52 more cases of a highly contagious coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa, the health ministry said on Friday, presenting new challenges for a country struggling with one of the worst outbreaks from Asia.
Of the new cases of the variant, known as B.1.351, the health ministry said 41 were detected in Manila, while the origin of the others was still being verified. The Philippines first reported six cases of the variant on Tuesday.
The Southeast Asian country began its vaccination campaign on Monday, but health experts fear the discovery of new variants could complicate its efforts.
Health officials also reported on Friday another 31 infections of a variant identified for the first time in Britain, bringing the total to 118.
In addition to the two variants, the health ministry said it had detected an additional 42 cases of “mutations of potential clinical significance” in samples collected from Filipinos who returned from abroad and residing in Manila and central Philippines.
The Philippine health ministry reported 3,045 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, the biggest daily increase in more than four months.
President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday guaranteed the safety of COVID-19 vaccines by calling on the public to get vaccinated as soon as possible, saying this was instrumental in the reopening of an economy that saw its biggest contraction in 2020.
The Philippine stock of 600,000 vaccines made by Sinovac Biotech from China gained momentum with the arrival on Thursday of more than 480,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine obtained through COVAX facilities.
The Philippines has been slower than some neighbors to distribute vaccines after the scarcity of supplies has hampered government efforts to secure millions of doses to inoculate 70 million of its 108 million inhabitants this year in an attempt to obtain collective immunity.
(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Ed Davies)