IHCM director Dr David Perera said as of Aug 17, the institute had done genome sequencing on 220 positive Covid-19 cases, and 179 of them were variants of concern (VOC) and variants of interest (VOI).

“Of these VOC/VOI, 178 were of the Delta variant and one case of the recently described Indonesian VOI detected in Bintulu.

“The overall Delta variant detection rate of 82% observed in this report represents an increase from the 73% reported on Aug 17,” he said in a statement today.

Since the outbreak of Covid-19 last year, IHCM has been at the forefront of the fight against the pandemic in the state, tasked with testing samples and genome sequencing analysis to detect changes in the virus.

Perera added that almost all of the Kuching division cases sequenced were of the Delta variant, with a detection rate of 99% (68 out of 69 cases sequenced).

“High detection rates of the Delta variant were also observed in the Samarahan division at 93% (38 out of 41 cases sequenced) and in the Serian division with 95% (16 out of 17 cases sequenced).

“Sharp increases in the Delta variant detection rates were also observed in Bintulu with 84% (20 out of 24 cases), Miri at 65% (9 out of 14) and in Sibu at 60% (16 out of 27),” he added.

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