New & More Dangerous Coronavirus in Malaysia
Malaysia has found a new strain of the coronavirus that is 10 times more infectious than COVID-19.
On Saturday 15 th August Malaysia’s Director General of Health Noor Hisham Abdullah in a Facebook post
said that a new strain of the novel coronavirus called D614G has been detected. This strain is thought to be ten times more infectious than COVID-19. The mutation has been spotted in three cases in a cluster of 45 people. The first case was spotted in a man who is a restaurant owner who returned from India. When he returned from India to Malaysia, he was supposed to be home quarantined for 14-days but he went out. Malaysian government has sentenced him to 5 months jail and fine. The new virus strain was also detected in another cluster. These people were returning from the Philippines.
Abdullah said that because of this strain, the current studies on vaccines may be incomplete or ineffective.
He added, “Till now these two clusters are controlled due to the fast actions. This test is an early test. There are several follow up tests going on for many other cases.”Abdullah said that people need to be more aware and careful.
The mutation infects other individuals 10 times more and spreads more easily by an individual super spreader. He added that Malaysia’s main action was to secure public health.
But World Health Organization (WHO) has said that there is no proof that the strain leads to a more severe
disease. The new vaccines that are being developed may still work on this new virus.
