Kota Kinabalu: Sabah and Labuan each registered their first Omicron Covid-19 case imported from Saudi Arabia according to an update from Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin today.
Sabah’s case arrived in Malaysia on Dec 18 from apparently an umrah pilgrimage 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 the other Covid-19 cases in the cluster will also test positive for Omicron as more whole genomic sequencing results come in and also whether more local infections will be discovered in the cluster.
The two cases were part of 58 new Omicron cases nationwide which included four local infections in Kedah, added Khairy.
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.
There was now a total of 122 cases nationwide from the world's fast-spreading variant, which was reported to have the ability to transmit three to four times faster than the Delta variant.
However, despite Omicron's fast transmission, health authorities in some nations reported that the variant causes mild sicknesses in patients, unlike Delta.
Umrah pilgrims were currently still returning home in droves from Saudi Arabia, one of 18 nations listed by Malaysia as having a high risk of Omicron infection.
On Dec 25, Khairy said a big portion of umrah returnees broke their home quarantine rules such as by receiving guests.
Malaysia has temporarily suspended umrah travels from Jan 8 to stem the spread of Omicron in the nation.
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