MALAYSIA’s third wave of Covid-19 infections, stemming from Sabah and Kedah, is made more challenging as some clusters in these states have been found with a more infectious strain of the coronavirus, Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said today.

“The third wave will be more challenging given that the clusters in Sabah and Kedah have been confirmed by the Institute of Medical Research laboratory as having the D614G strain, which can easily spread and be highly infectious,” the director-general of health said.

The strain was found in the Sivagangga and Tawar clusters in Kedah, which went on to infect 45 and 73 people respectively.

The strain is said to be 10 times more likely to infect other people.

Since the beginning of the pandemic in Malaysia, Sabah has recorded a cumulative 3,565 cases.

In recent days since the Sabah elections on September 26, it has had the highest number of fresh infections.

Today, Sabah accounted for 274 out of 354 new cases.

All six deaths reported today were from Sabah, as were all of yesterday’s five fatalities.

Kedah today accounted for 10 of the new infections.

Kedah also has one red zone in Kota Setar, and Sabah has eight – in Kota Kinabalu, Kunak, Lahad Datu, Papar, Sandakan, Semporna, Tawau and Tuaran.

However, Noor Hisham said the ministry is well prepared to handle the third wave of infection.

Malaysia has stepped up its testing capacity by increasing the number of laboratories from 23 to 60. With this, the testing capacity has increased from 1000 to more than 41,000 samples daily.

Noor Hisham said the ministry has utilised only 51% of its capacity.

He added that the ministry is also able to use its past experience to set up low risk quarantine centres.

Apart from that, MOH also has sufficient supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and breathing aid to be sent to Sabah. – October 9, 2020.