A COVID-19 variant that was first reported in the Philippines and the United Kingdom has made its way to Sarawak, Universiti of Malaysia, Sarawak (Unimas) said.

The variant, given the B.1.1.28.3 lineage or P.3 variant by Unimas researchers, is said to have mutations associated with immune-escape (the virus’ ability to get around the human body’s immune response) from both vaccine-induced and natural infection protection, according to Prof David Perera, director of the Institute of Health and Community Medicine (IHCM) at the university.

To date, eight cases of the P3 variant had been detected – four in Kuching and four in the neighbouring Samarahan district, Perera said in a statement on genomic surveillance today.

He said the P.3 variant is characterised by two key mutations – the E484K mutation shared with the South African variant, and the N501Y mutation shared with the UK variant.

This variant was detected in the Philippines in March this year and in the UK in recently imported cases.

“Uncontrolled intense transmission of the virus will lead to emergence of more virus variants that may have an important impact on the vaccine efficacy and possibly severity of the disease,” Perera, who is a member of the Sarawak Covid-19 vaccine advisory group, added.

He said the continuous evolving of new variants shows the strong need for the public to continue adhering to the standard operating procedure (SOPs) and guidelines, particularly mask-wearing, hand hygiene and physical distancing and the need to achieve herd-immunity through the vaccination programme.

He said these efforts will help slow virus transmission and reduce the chance of future variants evolving in the community.

Researchers at the IHCM conducting the genomic surveillance and tracking of the SARS-COV-2 variants circulating in Sarawak have to date completed genomic sequencing of over 484 samples, Perera said.

The genomic sequence data has also been shared in the GISAID global SARS-COV-2 sequence database.

“We recently reported that our variant surveillance study has identified the B.1.470 and B.1.524 lineages as the circulating variants in the third wave (Sept – Nov, 2020) and lineages B.1.470, B.1.524 and B.1.466.2 as the circulating variants in the fourth wave (December 2020 onwards) in Sarawak,” he said.

The B.1.466.2 variant, he said, is related to the ‘Pasai’ cluster on the outskirt of Sibu town.

“This variant shares the P681R mutation with the UK B.1.1.7 variant that is associated with increased transmissibility.” – April 30, 2021.