OMICRON is now the most prevalent Covid-19 variant in Malaysia, overtaking Delta, Health Director-General Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said today.

“The Health Ministry would like to inform the public that genomic sequencing has shown that the Omicron variant has started to replace the Delta variant as the main cause of transmission among Malaysians,” he said in a statement.

The director-general said that it was of concern that the Omicron BA.2 variant saw an increase in transmission between January and March.

“The BA.2 variant increased to 27.1% (of cases) compared to 0.9% in January and 2.7% in February. This rapid increase is something that needs to be paid attention to. 

“BA.2 may cause higher rates of transmission compared to the other sub-lineage of the Omicron variant,” he said.

To date, 65.7% of adults have received their booster dose while 35.3% of children between the ages of 5 and 11 have been vaccinated.

Malaysia reported 19,105 Covid-19 infections yesterday and 71 deaths.

Of the new daily infections reported yesterday, Noor Hisham said category 2 made up the bulk of the cases with 10,645 infections, followed by category 1 with 8,267 cases. – March 21, 2022.