AN infectious disease expert said Thursday that the new Omicron XBF subvariant would not cause severe infections in the Philippines, although he warned that this could be more transmissible than the other subvariants. 

Edsel Salvaña made the statement after the Philippines detected its first case of the XBF variant, which was linked to the rise of COVID-19 infections in Australia, with 55 percent of total COVID-19 cases detected in Victoria, Australia.

The nationwide positivity rate in the Philippines is currently at 1.8 percent, as per the tally by the independent pandemic monitor OCTA Research Group.

No evidence yet

“Wala namang ebidensya na mas nakakapagdulot siya ng mas severe na sakit. Bagamat ang nakikita nila, isa ito sa potential na baka mas nakakahawa siya at mas nakakaiwas sa ating mga bakuna,” Salvaña said in a public briefing.

Salvaña likewise said that he does not anticipate a spike in the number of COVID-19 infections since the country’s immunity to the virus remains high at the moment.

According to the latest sequencing report from the Philippine Genome Center, which covered the period of February 7 to 9, the country has one case of the XBF variant, as well as two local cases of XBB 1.5.

Along with XBB.1.5 and CH.1.1, the Omicron subvariant XBF was recently added to the World Health Organization’s list of subvariants under monitoring.

Salvaña noted that both the recently detected XBF and XBB.1. subvariants have mutations that can give survival advantages, but there is no evidence yet that they could cause severe infections.

But he said that despite this, the public should still wear masks to protect them from getting infected.

COVID-19 update

Despite reporting the detection of two of the most infectious subvariants of COVID-19 in the country, the Department of Health reported a consistent decline in the number of coronavirus cases in the Philippines.

On Thursday, the health department recorded an additional 171 cases to the total caseload of COVID-19 infections, with 9,082 active cases.

Meanwhile, the DOH said there are currently 73,860,103 Filipinos who have completed their primary doses of COVID-19 vaccines, while there were a total of 21,450,894 administered booster shots in the country. 

In 2022, the DOH set a target for booster shots of 30 percent, or 23.4 million, of the 78 million eligible people.