By Karen Bong
KUCHING, Jan 6: A total of seven local Omicron cases have been recorded in Sarawak as of today.
Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said that the seven Covid-19 positive cases involving three separate families were confirmed Omicron variant through genome sequencing conducted by University Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas).
According to a statement from the Ministry of Health (MOH), four members in the first family were infected with the father and two children tested positive after returning to Sarawak from a holiday in Kedah and Penang in the month of December last year.
Upon returning home, they infected their grandmother who was also confirmed positive of Omicron.
The mother who also went for the holiday trip is currently categorised as presumptive Omicron case and is still waiting for genome sequencing test results.
For the second family, two persons were infected.
The case involved an individual going for screening at a private clinic following a bout of fever in which the test result had returned positive of Omicron.
The case’s father being a close contact was also screened and tested positive for Omicron.
Both cases had no travel history out of the country during the incubation period nor exposed to Omicron positive cases.
The seventh case involved another individual detected positive of Omicron following a pre-screening before traveling back to another place for work. The case also had no travel history out of the country during the incubation period.
This case has been categorised as locally acquired infection of Omicron variant where the  cause of transmission had yet to be identified.
Meanwhile, the MOH confirmed 44 more imported Omicron cases in Malaysia with 29 cases from Saudi Arabia; five cases each from UAE and Kazakhstan; three cases from the United Kingdom; and one case each from United States and Tanzania.
“In addition, the Institute for Medical Research (IMR) has also confirmed 72 Omicron cases and 59 of them were from Saudi Arabia. The details of the results will be released in the nearest future,” he told a press conference today.
With the latest results, Khairy said that the cumulative Omicron cases in Malaysia have been pushed to 245 as of today.
From the figure, 233 cases were imported from overseas countries, while 12 cases were locally acquired infection.
From the overall Omicron cases reported, a total of 157 cases or 64.8 per cent were those returning from pilgrimage.— DayakDaily
