KUCHING: The first Covid-19 positive case involving the Delta variant has been detected in Sarawak, the Institute of Health and Community Medicine (IHCM) of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) said today.
In a statement today, IHCM said the variant was detected following its genome sequencing analysis recently.
“A 56-year-old man was detected with the variant on June 18 and his case is classified as Import B case,” it said.
According to IHCM, besides the Delta variant, positive cases involving the Beta and the Theta variants had also been detected in Sarawak before this.
A cumulative total of 59 cases involving Variants of Concern (VOC) and Variants of Interest (VOI) had been detected in positive cases up to June 26.
Since the outbreak of Covid-19 last year, IHCM has been at the forefront of the fight against the pandemic in the state.
It was tasked with testing samples and genome sequencing analyses to detect changes in the virus.