Health DG: Bulk of country’s Delta cases between Sept 13-25 detected in Sarawak
KUCHING: A total of 472 Covid19 cases sequenced between Sept 13 and 25 nationwide were found to be of the Delta variant.
This was according to an infographics released by Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah on Facebook Saturday night, which also showed that 302 of the 472 Delta cases were detected in Sarawak.
Selangor placed second with 54 Delta cases, followed by Sabah (25) and Penang (23).
Johor, Kuala Lumpur, Perlis, Terengganu, Kedah, Negri Sembilan, Melaka, Putrajaya and Kelantan also recorded cases involving the variant.
It is also revealed that three cases of Beta, another Variant of Concern (VOC), were detected nationwide during the same period.
Two Beta variant cases were detected in Sabah, and one in Penang.
Dr Noor Hisham, in his remarks, stated that these latest numbers brought the cumulative number of cases involving VOC and Variant of Interest (VOI) in the country to 1,860.
“Of the total, 1,840 are VOC, while 20 involve VOI,” he said in the post, adding the Delta variant topped the list with the most cases (1,612), followed by Beta (214) and Alpha (14).
For VOI, 13 cases involved Theta, four involved Kappa, while three were the Eta strain.
Sarawak also topped the list for the cumulative number of cases involving VOC and VOI, with 1,059 of the total 1,860 cases nationwide. This was followed by Selangor (224), Johor (83), Penang (64), Sabah (63), Kedah (57), Kuala Lumpur (57) and Pahang (57).
Dr Noor Hisham also informed that the cases were identified through studies carried out by three research institutes, namely Institute of Medical Research (IMR), Integrative Pharmacogenomics Institute (iPromise) of Universiti Teknologi Mara, and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak’s Institute of Health and Community Medicine (IHCM).
In another Facebook post, Dr Noor Hisham shared another set of infographics which revealed that all states and territories in Malaysia recorded an infectivity rate (Rt) of below 1.0, except Pahang and Putrajaya, which both recorded an Rt of 1.02.
According to the infographics, Malaysia’s Rt value was at 0.9 as of Sept 25. The Rt value refers to the average number of people that a person who has the coronavirus has infected.
Terengganu had the second highest Rt value at 0.99, followed by Kelantan and Perak with 0.98 each. Sarawak’s Rt was 0.97.