PETALING JAYA: The health ministry detected 384 cases of the Delta variant of concern (VOC) from Sept 25 to Oct 6, bringing the total number of infections linked to the strain to 1,996.
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A total of 392 VOC cases were identified, with the remaining eight cases classified as the Beta variant.
No variants of interest (VOI) were recorded during the period, health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a statement this morning.
Monitoring of variants is being carried out by the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Molecular Biology Institute, Universiti Malaya Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Teknologi Mara Integrative Pharmacogenomics Institute, Universiti Malaya Tropical Infectious Diseases Research & Education Centre, Malaysia Genome Institute and the Institute for Medical Research.
The majority of Delta cases during the Covid-19 pandemic have been detected in Sarawak, with the VOC making up 998 cases in the state.
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This is followed by Selangor, where Delta has made up 276 of the infections.
Putrajaya has fared the best, having only had nine Delta cases detected so far.
Noor Hisham also noted that the World Health Organization had, on Sept 30, revised its categorisation of VOIs, which now only includes the Lambda and Mu mutations.
Theta, Kappa and Eta have now been designated as variants under monitoring by the group.-FMT