KUALA LUMPUR: The Health Ministry expects the Omicron sub-lineage BA.2 to soon become the dominant coronavirus variant in Malaysia.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said continuing genomic surveillance showed that Omicron has replaced Delta as the dominant variant in the country.
"Omicron, variant of concern (VOC), has three sub-lineages, namely BA.1, BA.1.1 and BA.2, and as of March 20, there is still no report on the existence of another sub-lineage, BA.3 in Malaysia.
"BA.2 is concerning as it is more transmissible than other Omicron sub-lineages and the Delta variant," he said in a statement today.
Continuing genomic surveillances were conducted by the UKM Medical Molecular Biology Institute (UMBI-UKM), Integrative Pharmacogenomics Institute, Universiti Teknologi Mara (iPROMISE-UiTM), Tropical Infectious Diseases Research and Education Centre (TIDREC-UM), Malaysia Genome & Vaccine Institute (MGVI), Institute of Health and Community Medicine, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (IHCM-Unimas), Universiti Putra Malaysia Teaching School (HP-UPM), Universiti Sains Malaysia Hopsital (USM), Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia – Kuantan, dan Institute for Medical Research (IMR).
Dr Noor Hisham said the BA.2 variant was on the rise now compared to the past two months.
"BA.1.1 had increased from 38.3 per cent in January to 48.7 per cent in February, but dropped to 40 per cent in March (March 1 to March 17).
"BA.2 has increased to 27.1 per cent as of March 17, and BA.2 cases were only at 0.9 per cent and 2.7 per cent in January and March respectively," he said.
He said the same situation was also reported in other countries including Denmark, India and Nepal where the BA.2 variant has become the dominant Covid-19 variant.
"The Health Ministry believes there is a huge possibility that the BA.2 variant will become dominant in Malaysia soon.
"Hence, Malaysians must be vigilant about the spread of BA.2, but, at the same time, we are also concerned about the prolonged Delta variant that has a severe impact particularly on unvaccinated or un-boosted groups," he said.
Dr Noor Hisham reiterated his calls, urging children and senior citizens to get boosted as the preparation for the transition to the endemic phase starts next month.
"Jingyou Yu et.al, 2022 research has suggested that a booster is recommended as it will increase neutralising antibodies against BA.1 or BA.2.
"Boosters will protect them from getting serious illness, hospitalisation or being admitted to intensive care units," he said.
He added that 65.7 per cent of the adult population had received booster jabs while only 35.3 per cent of children aged 5 to 11-years-old in the country have been vaccinated.
"Parents and family members need to play a vital role and act proactively to convince the vulnerable groups to get vaccinated and boosted as facts have proven the importance of vaccines and boosters for safety and health," he said.