3 contacts of India variant-infected OFW test positive for Covid

MANILA – Three close contacts of the overseas Filipino worker (OFW) who was infected with the SARS-CoV-2 variant first detected in India also tested positive for the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), the Department of Health (DOH) said Saturday.

The DOH previously reported that two male OFWs, from Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), caught the B.1.617 variant.

“As for case number 2, which is the 58-year-old male from UAE, we have 32 verified close contacts in the airplane and three of them are positive (for Covid-19),” DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in the Laging Handa briefing.

The patients’ samples have been sent to the Philippine Genome Center to determine if they caught the Indian variant, Vergeire added.

“Doon sa dalawa, hinahanap pa natin, nilo-locate pa natin ‘yung specific individuals. Twenty-eight po dito sa 32 ay negative pero ‘yung isang data ay vine-verify pa natin dahil wala pa sila doon sa Covid-KAYA database natin (As for the two, we are still trying to locate them. Twenty-eight of the 32 close contacts are negative but we’re also verifying the data of one passenger because they are not in the Covid-KAYA database yet),” she explained.

Covid-KAYA is a platform used by health care workers to collect and share Covid-19 cases with the DOH.

For the India variant-positive OFW from Oman, Vergeire said the DOH identified six close contacts, three of whom already tested negative.

The other three are still being located as their names on the passengers’ manifest do not match the data that authorities have on the database.