THE recent surge in daily Covid-19 cases could be due to the spread of highly infectious Omicron subvariant BA.5, which has already been detected in the country, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said.

“It is highly likely that the highly infectious Omicron subvariant BA.5 has spread widely in Malaysia.

“Based on the epidemiology globally, the sub-lineage BA.5 shows an increase in cases.

“Therefore, since the variant is already detected in Malaysia, it is predicted that it may further increase the daily cases nationwide.

“This is because Omicron BA.5 spreads easily compared with previous Omicron variants BA.1 and BA.2,” Khairy said at a press conference today.

Based on a genomic sequencing conducted as of June 30, Khairy said that there are 13 cases involving Omicron sub-lineage variants.

Of them, six cases are of BA.2.12.1 variant, two cases of BA.5 variant and five cases of BA.5.2 variant.

“There is no BA.4 variant detected yet, but we are updating out data,” he said.

Khairy said those who have completed the Covid-19 vaccination or had been previously infected with the disease are more likely to be reinfected with this variant. 

He said such a situation has resulted in an increase in hospital admissions in countries such as Singapore, Portugal and the United Kingdom.

He, however, said the new possible wave caused by the highly infectious Omicron subvariant will not be as severe as the first Omicron wave.

“At the moment, we are not seeing any changes in the severity of the cases,” he said. 

“I was informed by infectious disease experts that most likely, the severity of these BA.5 cases will not be worse than the original Omicron wave.

“So we are expecting the severity to be roughly the same as the initial Omicron wave.”

Khairy said currently, they do not have a projection on how long the new wave will last but expect it to last for around three months.

“Maybe we will see the number of cases increase for a maximum of three months,” he said.

“I expect in three months, we will peak and fall. That is also in our experience with the first Omicron.”

Referring to data from Israel and the United States, Khairy said individuals who have completed primary dose vaccination and received two booster doses, especially those aged 60 and above, have lower mortality rates than those who have only one booster dose. – July 8, 2022.