KUALA LUMPUR: Twenty-eight out of 29 wastewater samples taken from international entry points contained the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, says Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
The results of the Covid-19 environmental surveillance, conducted from June to Dec 31, came from testing at the National Public Health Laboratory with one more sample still being tested, he added.
In the same period, the lab also received 301 samples from 15 sentinel locations representing each state in the country.
“A total of 288 samples (95.7%) detected the presence of SARS-CoV-2, and positive for Omicron. Three had no presence, while 10 are still being tested,” he said in a statement yesterday, as reported by Bernama.
Dr Noor Hisham said the environmental surveillance provided early warning by allowing them to get an idea on the virus density trend, identify the variants in the community and monitor the intervention controls’ effectiveness in general.
“For sentinel locations in each state, the samples are taken from selected sewage treatment plants by the respective district health office.
“About two or three samples are taken from each location monthly depending on the need. For samples from entry points, risk assessment is continually conducted to identify countries with risk.
“Based on the assessment, all flights from the particular country are then further studied by the Kuala Lumpur International Airport health office.
“Sewage sampling from aircraft is done twice weekly, and one litre is taken from each selected aircraft. All the sewage water would then be brought out of the airport using lavatory trucks to the aircraft waste disposal facilities,” he added.
He revealed that due to the current situation, the sampling involves aircraft from China.
He said this would help the Health Ministry monitor the entry of SARS-CoV-2 variants from entry points as a control measure to face the current situation.
