KUALA LUMPUR (Bernama): The Health Ministry (MOH) has confirmed the discovery of the first two cases of Covid-19 subvariant Delta AY.4.2 in the country, involving imported cases of Malaysian students returning from the United Kingdom. Dr Noor Hisham said the AY.4 variant is among 75 types of lineages originating from the Delta variant and among the sublineages of AY.4 is the AY.4.2 variant, which is also known as Delta Plus. "The AY.4.2 variant has two additional mutations to the spike proteins, namely Y145H and A222V and as of the end of October 2021, the AY.4.2 variant represents 10% of the total full genome sequencing conducted in the UK," he said. He said the cumulative number of cases categorised as VOC and VOI (variant of interest) is now 3,782 cases, which is 3,762 VOC cases and 20 VOI cases. To date, the total VOC comprises 3,522 cases of the Delta variant, Beta (226 cases), and Alpha (14 cases) while for VOI, there are 13 cases involving the Theta variant, Kappa (four cases) and Eta (three cases).

Source: The Star November 06, 2021 17:01 UTC