COVID: 48 new Delta cases reported today - Health DG

KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 48 new cases of the Delta (B.1.617.2) variant of concern (VOC) were reported in Malaysia today, said Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

He said of this number, 34 cases were detected in Penang, 12 in Pahang and two in Perlis through continued studies by the Integrative Pharmacogenomics Institute (iPROMISE-UiTM).

"This brings the cumulative cases of infections by SARS-CoV-2 virus categorised as VOC and variant of interest (VOI) to 3,830.

"Of the number detected, 3,810 cases are VOC and 20 cases are VOI. Overall, for VOC there are 3,570 cases of Delta variant, 226 cases of Beta variant, and 14 cases of Alpha variant so far," he said in a statement today.

For VOI, there were 13 Theta cases, four Kappa cases and three Eta cases detected until today.

Meanwhile, 98.5 per cent or 6,226 of the 6,323 new COVID-19 cases reported today were in categories one and two while the remaining 1.5 per cent or 97 cases were in categories three, four and five.

"A total of 538 cases need treatment in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), with 274 requiring ventilators," he added.

Dr Noor Hisham said 5,337 recoveries were reported today, bringing the cumulative figure for recovered cases to 2,435,459.

He said four new clusters were detected today involving three workplace clusters in Selangor, Johor and Pahang and one education cluster in Kuala Lumpur.

Detailed information on the COVID-19 situation will be uploaded on the COVIDNOW website at https://covidnow.moh.gov.my and the data will be updated at midnight every day.

-- BERNAMA