KUALA LUMPUR – Ongoing studies by three research institutes in the country have identified 265 cases involving variants of concern (VOC), namely the Delta variant (B.1.617.2), from August 16 to 29.
Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the Institute of Medical Research (IMR) identified 39 Delta variant cases, Integrative Pharmacogenomics Institute (iPROMISE), Universiti Teknologi Mara (48 cases) and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Institute of Health and Community Medicine (178 cases).
“This brings the total cases involving the SARS-CoV-2 virus categorised as VOC and variants of interest (VOI) to 1,221 cases.
“From the total detected, 1,201 cases are VOC while 20 cases are VOI,” he said in a Facebook post yesterday.
Dr Noor Hisham said overall, for the VOC category, there have been 978 cases of the Delta variant, 209 cases of the Beta variant and 14 cases of the Alpha variant.
For the VOI category, 13 cases were of the Theta variant, four cases of Kappa variant and three cases of the Eta variant. – Bernama, September 1, 2021