THERE is a possibility that Malaysians could be exposed to different strains of the Covid-19 virus, as more expats return home said Health Director-General Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

They are returning “from China and from United Kingdom, the United States and other places”.

“So, maybe we have three strains in Malaysia, but we don’t know until we isolate and culture, and detect the virus.

“Only then we can compare whether it’s strain A,B or C,” he said at the ministry’s daily press conference in Putrajaya today, in response to a question of mutations of the virus here.

Noor Hisham said this is a new virus and they do not have data and reports to which they can refer, like other established viruses.

“So, what we are doing now is trying to isolate and culture the virus, then we will make comparisons.

“During phase one, basically 16 of our patients were from Wuhan, China, and we were seeing a different strain of the virus.

“For example, in China now they are saying it’s strain B, probably in Malaysia it’s strain C and in the United States or Europe it’s strain A.

“We must culture our own virus, which is a whole genome sequence. If we can do that, then we can tag and identify the nature of it.”

Malaysia today reported 85 new Covid-19 cases, making it the first time in about a month that the country reported fewer than 100 cases in a 24-hour period.

Meanwhile, there are now 5,072 confirmed cases.

One more person died today, bring the death toll to 83. – April 15, 2020.