Kota Kinabalu: Sabah and Labuan each registered their first Omicron case imported from Saudi Arabia according to an update from Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin today.
Sabah’s case arrived from Saudi Arabia apparently from an umrah trip on Dec 18 and was put under Category 2 which was the designation for an infection with a mild symptom.
The case in Labuan arrived from the Gulf nation on Dec 21 and was a Category-1 patient or asymptomatic case.
Apparently, Sabah’s case was in the Millenium Saudi cluster in Sandakan, the only umrah-linked cluster reported in Sabah so far, which currently had 18 cases consisting of 13 pilgrims and five close contacts according to Sabah Health Director Datuk Dr Rose Nani Mudin.
This latest development raised the question of whether more imported Omicron cases will be found and whether local infections will be discovered among the close contacts in the cluster as more whole genomic sequencing results come in.
The two cases were part of 58 new Omicron cases nationwide which included four local infections in Kedah as announced by Khairy today.
The four local cases were believed to have been infected by a person returning from umrah who was positive for Omicron.
Of the 54 import cases, 39 were from Saudi Arabia, seven from the UAE, four from the United Kingdom, two from Nigeria and one each from Kazakhstan and France.
* Follow us on Instagram and join our Telegram and/or WhatsApp channel(s) for the latest news you don't want to miss.
* Do you have access to the Daily Express e-paper and online exclusive news? Check out subscription plans available.