DOH: Covid-19 cases in Baguio, Apayao up

By Liza Agoot 

BAGUIO CITY – Health officials in Cordillera Administrative Region said they were on alert and monitoring Covid-19 cases following increase in active cases in Apayao and this city the last two weeks.
    Karen Lonogan, chief of the Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (RESU), said in a press conference Wednesday that the region currently has 10 active cases, which two weeks ago was only two cases.
    “We are on the watch for clustering of cases and the easing implementation of MPHS (minimum public health standards) and the emergence of new variants,” she said.
    Lonogan said while the case statistics remain low, the drastic increase in cases is still notable.

The record provided by the DOH-CAR showed Apayao and Baguio City had four active cases each with a two-week growth rate of 75 percent and negative 17 percent, respectively.

The average daily attack rate (ADAR) of the two areas is 0.40 percent and 0.19 percent, respectively. Abra and Mountain Province have one case each.

Benguet, Ifugao, and Kalinga have zero active cases.

Lonogan said that they continue to pursue surveillance and contact tracing to ensure that possibly infected persons do not spread the virus and that the health care resources are focused on severe cases.

The Dept. of Health earlier said it has detected the first case of Omicron-BA.2.12 in Baguio City in a 52-year-old Finnish female who arrived from Finland last April 2.

Lonogan assured the public that the Omicron sub-lineage BA.2.12 did not spread in Baguio or anywhere in the region.

The Omicron subvariant was said to be more contagious than the Omicron variant, which caused a major surge in Covid-19 cases in the first two months of the year.

In statistics provided, Dr. Amelita Pangilinan, assistant regional director and spokesperson of the agency in the region, said that Cordillera continues to maintain a high rate of testing with an average daily specimen sample of 2,177 from April 11 to 17 and increased to 2,375 daily average specimen from April 18 to 24.

She said that they are banking on the high vaccination data in the Cordillera, especially in Baguio City, which is the most populated with the smallest land area in the region.

She said, “bakuna (vaccination) works.”

Data provided also shows that at least 83.47 percent of its 1,481,793 target adult population in the region have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

A total of 1,236,791 have at least one dose; 1,163,640 have been fully vaccinated; and 205,520 have received the first booster dose.

“We hope to further increase the coverage and convince those who still refuse to get the vaccine to get the jab and protect themselves,” Pangilinan said. -- PNA