By Ling Hui
KUCHING, Sept 26: Some 302 Covid-19 cases involving the Delta variant (B.1.617.2) were detected in Sarawak from Sept 13 to 25, says the Health Ministry.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the cases were identified following continuous genome sequencing on positive cases conducted by Universiti Malaysia Sarawak’s (Unimas) Institute of Health and Community Medicine (IHCM) from the Variant of Concern (VOC) in Sarawak.
Dr Noor Hisham in a social media posting last night said there were 475 cases of the VOC identified throughout the country whereby 472 cases were of the Delta variant and three cases of the Beta variant (B.1.351).
Other states which recorded the Delta variant were Selangor with 54 cases, Sabah (26), Penang (23), Pahang (17), Johor (13), and Kuala Lumpur (12).
The states which recorded one-digit figures of the Delta variant include Perlis (7), Terengganu (6), Kedah (5), Negeri Sembilan (4), Melaka (1), Putrajaya (1), and Kelantan (1).
Two cases of the Beta variant were identified in Sabah and one case in Penang.
Looking at the overall data as of Sept 25, Sarawak remained at the top of the list with 998 cumulative cases of the Delta variant whereby 997 were local transmission and one was imported.
This was 61.9 per cent out of the total of 1,612 Delta cases detected in the nation.
Besides, Sarawak has also detected 47 cases of the Beta variant until yesterday (Sept 25), with 46 local transmission and one imported.
As for the Variants of Interest (VOI) in Sarawak, Dr Noor Hisham said there were 13 cases of the Theta (P.3) variant and one case of the Eta (B.1.525) variant as of Sept 25.
He added the data on VOC and VOI were complied by Unimas IHCM, Malaysia Genome Institute (MGI), Integrative Pharmacogenomics Institute (iPROMISE-UiTM), Institute for Medical Research (IMR), UKM Medical Molecular Biology Institute (UMBI-UKM), and Tropical Infectious Diseases Research & Education Centre (TIDREC-UM). — DayakDaily
