The Department of Health (DOH) said Saturday the government is still locating eight of the 253 travelers that arrived from South Africa.

"These are 253 individuals where 165 passengers are under verification process, 80 were contact traces out of these individuals. We still have eight who are still to be located," said Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire at the ''Laging Handa'' virtual public forum.

"The 72 of the 80 that we have contact traced are already in the quarantine facility and three are under home quarantine. Five discharged because they have completed their 14-day quarantine already. The retesting is being done and we are waiting for their results," she added.

Cynthia Saloma, executive director of Philippine Genome Center, said according to the Bureau of Quarantine a total of 242 were tested positive for the month of November.

Saloma said the DOH is coordinating with laboratories to submit the swab samples of the 242 travelers for genome sequencing.

"The DOH are still locating the laboratories at the airport that tested these individuals to submit the samples to the Philippine Genome Center because we have sufficient kits for the rest of the year and also up to the first quarter of next year to conduct whole genome sequence," she said.

"The capability of genome center is about 750 a week but we can double this to 1,500 samples a week. If there are samples that needs to sequence immediately we can do that with a different sequencing machines of 48 samples overnight we can do that," she added.

Saloma said like the Delta variant there is also a possibility that the Omicron has enter the country but not yet detected.

"The possibility exist but until such time that we have whole genome sequence we cannot say that," she said. Robina Asido/DMS