Health DG: Malaysia’s first COVID-19 Omicron case who arrived two weeks ago has tested negative yesterday

Health Director-General Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has announced yesterday evening that the first COVID-19 Omicron case and her seven close contacts have returned negative for their RT-PCR tests that were conducted yesterday. This comes two weeks after the index case was tested positive after arriving at KLIA on 19th November 2021.

Yesterday, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin announced Malaysia’s first Omicron case after a series of tests were conducted on a total of 74 people who were tested positive for COVID-19 at KLIA from 11th to 28th November 2021. Subsequent lab tests have confirmed the Omicron variant on 2nd December 2021.

The first case is a 19-year-old who is studying at a private university in Ipoh and she arrived from South Africa via Singapore on the 19th of November 2021, before South Africa reported the first case to WHO. Khairy shared that the index case was fully vaccinated with Pfizer and was asymptomatic during her 10-day quarantine which ended on 29 November.

He also said none of her close contacts were symptomatic and the Ministry of Health had called all of them back yesterday to undergo a PCR swab testing just to make sure they are not positive. All 8 RT-PCR tests have returned negative which included the driver, university staff, university mates, and two roommates.

Khairy said, “For omicron, what this tells us is that the system works”. He said we can capture it and if everyone sticks to the rules, we can contain it, but we all have to accept the possibility of Omicron cases here in Malaysia as there are in other countries as well.

[ SOURCE, IMAGE SOURCE ]