THE Philippines has detected its first two cases of the BA.2.75 subvariant of the coronavirus disease 2019 Omicron variant, according to the Department of Health .According to DoH Officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire, the two individuals were from the Western Visayas region. One is partially-vaccinated while the other one is unvaccinated.Vergeire said that the exposure, travel history and health status are still being verified, but they are now tagged as recovered.
The variant, named 'Centaurus', was first detected in India and is said to be more infectious and more immune evasive than the other subvariants of Omicron.But Vergeire emphasized that the severity of Centaurus has yet to be studied by health experts.Aside from BA.2.75, 1,015 cases of the highly-infectious BA.5 variant of Covid-19 have also been detected except in Zamboanga and Northern Mindanao.