162 new VOC cases detected from Jan 23-25 - Health DG

He said the Institute for Medical Research (IMR) had identified 89 cases, Faculty of Medicine University of Malaya (FOM-UM) detected 71 cases and Malaysia Genome and Vaccine Institute (MGI) (two cases), all of which were the Omicron variant.

"This brings the cumulative total cases infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which are categorised as VOC and Variant of Interest (VOI) to 7,056.

"Of the total detected, 7,036 cases were VOC while 20 cases were VOI," he said in a statement today.

Dr Noor Hisham said overall, until to date, for VOC there were 6,188 Delta variant cases, 601 (Omicron variant), 233 (Beta variant) and 14 (Alpha variant).

Dr Noor Hisham said for the VOI cases, there were 13 Theta variant cases, Kappa variant (four) and Eta variant (three).

On the latest COVID-19 cases, he said 4,066 cases were recorded today with 50 cases (1.2 per cent) in categories Three, Four and Five while 4,016 cases (98.8 per cent) comprising Categories One and Two.

"From the 4,066 cases, 442 are imported cases and 3,624 are local cases with 131 cases requiring treatment at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and 65 cases requiring respiratory aid," he said.

He also announced that 13 new clusters were reported today bringing the number of active clusters to 244 while the infectivity rate (Rt) of COVID-19 in Malaysia yesterday was 1.09.