ILOILO City – The country’s first two cases of BA.2.75 or Centaurus, a new subvariant of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Omicron variant, were detected in Western Visayas.
Department of Health (DOH) officer-in-charge Dr. Maria Rosario Vergeire said one of the infected individuals was partially vaccinated while the other one was unvaccinated.
As of yesterday, DOH was still verifying the exposure, travel histories and health status of the two cases.
However, she noted that the two were already tagged as recovered.
BA.2.75 was first detected in India in May this year.
It was said to be more infectious and more immune evasive compared to the other sublineages of Omicron.
Because it is overtaking the previously dominant strain in India, virologists think Centaurus is likely to be more transmissible and therefore likely to become dominant elsewhere.
But they caution that they don’t yet have enough data on the strain to make definitive statements like this.
Infectious disease expert Dr. Rontgene Solante said they are waiting for more studies to show if the BA.2.75 could cause more severe symptoms.
“It’s too early to tell the characteristics and the behavior of this new Omicron BA.2.75, but there are mutations that they found most likely, it can have higher rate of transmission just like what we have now in BA.5. There is also a possibility that it can also affect our vaccines,” he said./PN
