MIRI – A Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) research involving samples from individuals infected with Covid-19 from across the state has found a sharp upwards curve of Delta variant cases.
Of the samples subjected to genomic tests on August 10, 73% of them turned out to be of the variant.
Unimas, which conducted the tests for the State Disaster Management Committee, recently submitted its report via its Institute of Health and Community Medicine.
The institute’s director Dr David Perera said in the report that of 249 cases of variants detected, 248 were of Delta and only one was of an Indonesian variant of concern, based on the tests conducted on August 10.
The Indonesian variant has yet to be named.
“There has been a detection rate of 73% for the Delta variant, from Covid-19 cases selected throughout Sarawak for testing in our laboratory.
“In the Kuching division alone, the Delta variant detection rate is about 90% of tested cases.
“The Delta variant has also been found in the districts of Bau, Lundu, Samarahan, Simunjan, Sibu, Miri, and Bintulu,” he added.
Prior to this on August 3, another 180 cases of the Delta variant were uncovered by Unimas, along with two Beta variant cases and seven Indonesian variant cases.
Sarawak now has more than 700 of these mutated variants found so far by Unimas, making it the state with the most number of mutated variants.
Selangor comes second with a total of 31 Delta cases as of last week.
Sarawak has seen 489 Covid-19 deaths and some 90,000 positive infections so far. – The Vibes, August 18, 2021
