CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY -- The local government unit here has reported the first case of Omicron subvariant BA.5 in the city, the City Health Office (CHO) confirmed on Tuesday, June 21.
Dr. Teodoro Yu Jr., CHO medical officer, in an online briefer, said the infected individual is a 38-year old male seafarer from Barangay Bugo, who had a travel history in Egypt and Manila.
Dr. Ellenieta Gamolo, the assistant regional director of Department of Health Northern Mindanao (DOH-10) also confirmed that the reported case was the first Omicron subvariant BA.5 detected in the entire region.
The CHO, Yu said, immediately started the contract tracing after they received the report on June 17.
According to the case profile presented by the CHO, the said seafarer had been swabbed at the Supercare Medical Services in Makati City on March 19 where he was confirmed positive of Covid-19.
The sample had been forwarded for Genome testing and the result for detection of Omicron subvariant BA.5 had been released on June 13.
The infected individual, including his two first generation close contacts, had been re-tested here on June 14 through RT-PCR (Reverse Transcriptase-Polymerase Chain Reaction) test and they were all negative from the virus.
“We will not be complacent. Our team is ongoing for the second and third generation close contacts. As we noticed, there was already a long timeline. However, we should implement extreme precautions,” Yu said.
He explained that the Omicron variant is highly transmissible but has less severity compared to the other variants of Covid-19.
On the other hand, city mayor Oscar Moreno has underscored the measures in preventing the virus, especially the Covid-19 variants.
“If we do not take action with these sub-variants, it will spread. Again, I want to use or remind ourselves with this term that has been used in infection, exponential. One will infect several and these individuals will infect many people,” said Yu.
Yu also reminded the public the importance of vaccination as one of people’s protection against Covid-19.