KUCHING: There has been a sharp increase in Delta variant cases detected in the state, said Institute of Health and Community Medicine (IHCM) of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) director Professor Dr David Perera.
In revealing this, he said an overall detection rate of over 73 percent was recorded — a sharp increase from the 50 percent reported previously on August 3.
“In my report to the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas, the Delta variant detection rate is approximately 90 percent for the Kuching division alone.
“This variant also continues to be detected in Bau, Lundu, Kota Samarahan, Simunjan, Miri and Bintulu. Additionally, we have detected six Delta variants in Sibu,” he said in a statement today (August 18).
Dr David also said Unimas is helping SDMC to track SARS-COV-2 variants that are circulating in the state.
“As part of this ongoing surveillance, we would like to report that as of August 10, 249 additional Variants of Concern (VOC) and Variants of Interest (VOI) were detected from 338 Covid-19 cases sequenced.
“Of these, 248 were of the Delta variant (B.1.617.2). There was one case of the recently described Indonesian VOI (B.1.466 2) which was detected in Bintulu,” he said.
He added that a cumulative total of 592 VOC/VOI had been detected in Sarawak from positive Covid-19 cases as of August 10.
