Do you still remember the super-spreader Patient 26? He is believed to contract a mutated Covid-19 virus which is more aggressive.
Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the Institute for Medical Research (IMR) carried out virus isolation and cultured the virus for Patient 26. The study showed there was a mutation.
“The mutation might have caused the virus more aggressive, it has spread and infected about 120 people,” he said in a daily press briefing on Wednesday (Apr 29).
Patient 26 is UDA Holdings Bhd chairman Datuk Hisham Hamdan who was Shanghai in the middle of January, though he denied he contracted the virus there.
He started to develop symptoms on Feb 27, tested positive for Covid-19 on Feb 29 and was immediately warded at the Sungai Buloh Hospital.
Dr Hisham added that the IMR’s role was not only to conduct tests for Covid-19 but to also focus on researching the virus and its different strains.
“We see that for the first wave of infections and the initial stages of the second wave, the virus in our cases were of strain B, which come from Wuhan.
“This is different from strain A, which is linked to most cases in the United States, and for Europe it is strain C, ” he said.
Source : The Star