He said they comprised 132 Delta variant cases (B.1.617.2) and two Beta variant cases (B.1.351), bringing the total number of VOC cases in the country to 2,366.

He said the new development took the cumulative number of cases for the Delta variant detected to 2,128, and the Beta variant to 224.

“The Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s medical molecular biology institute (UMBI-UKM) identified 79 Delta variant cases, the integrative pharmacogenomics institute (iPROMISE-UiTM) detected 10 Delta variant cases, the tropical infectious diseases research & education centre (TIDREC-UM) (seven Delta variant cases) while the Malaysia genome institute (MGI) detected a case of the Delta variant.

“Meanwhile, the Institute for Medical Research (IMR) identified 37 cases, 35 involving the Delta variant and two Beta variant cases,” he said via a post on Facebook today.

Noor Hisham said the three states which recorded the highest number of new Delta variant cases were Johor with 43, followed by Negeri Sembilan (18) and Melaka (15).

However, he said no new cases involving variants of interest (VOI) were detected during the same period.

Another VOC that has been detected in Malaysia is the Alpha variant, with 14 cases so far, while VOI cases involve the Theta variant (13 cases), the Kappa variant (four cases) and Eta variant (three cases).

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