MANILA — The Philippines has recorded 27 additional cases of omicron subvariant XBB.1.16, bringing its tally to 292, according to the Department of Health.

The agency's latest COVID-19 biosurveillance report revealed that the 27 local "Arcturus" cases were found in Western Visayas.

XBB.1.16 is a descendent lineage of XBB, a recombinant of two BA.2 descendent lineages. It is considered a variant of interest by the World Health Organization.

The DOH earlier said the strain is capable of evading immunity and appears to be more contagious than previous variants.

• DOH: 3,442 COVID-19 cases logged on June 19-25

Health authorities have also detected 46 new cases of omicron subvariants.

Of the figure, some 36 were classified as XBB, including 2 XBB.1.5 cases, 12 XBB.1.9.1 cases, 2 XBB.1.9.2 cases, and 18 XBB.2.3 cases; 9 as BA.2.3.20, and 1 case as other omicron sublineages.

"All detected omicron subvariants were local cases from Region 6," the DOH report showed.

These are results of the latest sequencing run conducted by the Baguio General Hospital Medical Center and University of the Philippines - Philippine Genome Center Visayas from June 19 to 23.

As of June 26, the country has 8,033 active COVID-19 cases, the DOH's COVID-19 Tracker showed.

Of some 4.16 million infections tallied since the start of the pandemic, more than 66,000 led to death.

• Herbosa says to seek lifting of COVID-19 emergency

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