Two SARS-CoV-2 variants detected in Sarawak - Health DG

KUALA LUMPUR: Two new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus have been detected in Sarawak, says Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

In a post on his official Facebook page, Dr Noor Hisham said, however, there was currently no evidence to show that the B.1.470 and B.1.160 variants from the state had a higher level of infectivity.

He said based on the report by Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, the first variant, B.1.470, is likely to have come from Indonesia, which has a 67.7 per cent similar strain, although its true origins had yet to be determined.

He said the virus has the D614G mutation, which is found in almost the majority of the SARS-CoV-2 strains out there.

"The B.1.160 variant, meanwhile, has been commonly found in European countries since July 2020 starting from France (11.2 per cent) and is now dominated by Denmark (28 per cent), Switzerland (15.4 per cent) and the United Kingdom (UK) (17.2 per cent), which has spike mutations D614G and S477N,” he said.

-- BERNAMA