Manila, April 25 : The Philippines' Department of Health (DOH) reported on Sunday 8,162 new Covid-19 infections, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the Southeast Asian country to 997,523. The death toll climbed to 16,783 after 109 more patients died from the viral disease, the DOH said. The Philippines has been reporting below 10,000 daily cases for seven straight days but the transmission rate remains high, the Xinhua news agency reported. The inter-agency government coronavirus task force will decide next week whether to prolong or ease the strict lockdown restrictions in Metro Manila and its four adjacent provinces with high infection rates, Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano said. "We will discuss the new set of quarantine measures in Metro Manila and its four neighbouring provinces and other provinces with a high rate of infections," Ano, the vice-chair of the government's coronavirus task force, told a local radio interview on Sunday. The government placed these areas on strict lockdown since March 29 to stop the further spread of Covid-19 variants. The lockdown period ends on April 30. The Philippines, which has about 110 million population, has tested more than 10.5 million people since the outbreak in January 2020. /IANS