Different strain of Covid-19 virus found in Sarawak

 

A Sarawak state minister has called for studies to be carried out on the Covid-19 virus variant found in the state. (AP pic)

SIBU: The Covid-19 virus that has infected Sarawakians recently has been found to be a different strain from that detected early last year, state minister Dr Sim Kui Hian said today.

He said the infections in March and April 2020 were caused by the Wuhan strain but a different strain was revealed by genome sequencing analysis of infections at the Stutong Cluster and Keranji Tabuan Cluster last month.

Sim said the genome sequencing analysis by Universiti Malaysia Sarawak showed the new strain was similar to the ones found in Indonesian and Britain. As for the Pasai Cluster which had spread widely over many parts of Sarawak like wildfire, the strains were of peninsula origin and a little bit of the UK variant.

However, he said the UK strain was not of the particularly fast-spreading B117 variant of the Covid-19 virus. “It is not the particular mutation of the UK strain. It keeps on mutating. And now in the UK, they are talking about the African strain,” Sim said in an online talk hosted by Sibu Municipal Council chairman Clarence Ting Ing Horh.

The talk also featured Sarawak General Hospital’s infectious disease specialist, Dr Chua Hock Hin and head of the police Crime Prevention and Community Safety Division, Ariffin Bahar who touched on the Covid-19 situation in Sarawak including Sibu.

“We still do not know yet the clinical consequences of the new variants. That may explain why in Sarawak we noticed that 40% of those infected showed symptoms whereas worldwide only 20% had symptoms.

“We need scientists, universities and infectious disease experts to study in what way we are different,” Sim said.

Dr Chua was asked if vaccines would work on the mutated strains in view of news reports that the AstraZeneca vaccine was not effective against the South African strain. He said: “That is why we need more clinical studies to actually understand all these things. Only after the vaccine has been actually rolled out, can we see the real effects and if it really works or not.”

He quashed an allegation that the government was using the people in Belaga as guinea pigs for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. He said a dry run held on Jan 29 was aimed at testing the ability to keep the vaccine at -75 degrees Celsius throughout the delivery process from Belgium to Malaysia. - FMT