HEALTH Minister Khairy Jamaluddin announced today that Malaysia has detected its first Omicron case recently.
It was confirmed after health authorities took a sample from a foreign national student who entered the country on Nov 19.
“The South African student is now undergoing quarantine with five others who were in a bus together journeying from Klang Valley to Ipoh,” Khairy said at a press conference today.
He reiterated that the student arrived in Malaysia before the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Omicron a variant of concern on Nov 26.
As of now, The Government had banned travellers from Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Malawi for the time being.
On that note, Khairy reminded Malaysians that COVID-19 will continue to mutate and urged them to understand that new variants emerging in the future are inevitable.
Hence, the Rembau MP added that what governments should do was to put in place robust and effective measures in the public healthcare sector to “detect, trace and contain” cases.
“And we must continue to follow COVID-19 standard operating procedures, get vaccinated and follow up on the booster shots,” he stressed.Recently, the Health Ministry (MOH) had announced that it would speed up the booster shot programme following the discovery of Omicron.
To date, the WHO and other health experts across the globe have yet to scrutinise Omicron and said it would take another two to three weeks before understanding the adverse conditions it could cause. So far, it was said that the new variant causes “milder symptoms” compared to the highly-contagious Delta variant.
On related matter, Khairy urged the public, via Twitter, to not speculate and be judgmental against the foreign student who was detected having Omicron in Malaysia.
“The Omicron case is a student, legitimately studying in Malaysia, coming back after visiting family in South Africa. Complied with pre-departure testing, on-arrival testing, fully vaccinated, stayed home during quarantine. Let’s be measured in our comments & reaction,” he remarked. – Dec 3, 2021.
