Southeast Asia faces a strain of the new coronavirus that the Philippines, facing the largest outbreak, is probing and seeing if the mutation makes it more infectious.
The virus, previously seen in other parts of the world and named D614G, was identified in a Malaysian outbreak of 45 cases that began from someone who had come back from India and broke his 14-day quarantine at home. The Philippines found the strain in the largest city, its capital, among random Covid-19 samples.
The mutation "is reported to have a higher risk of infection or infectiousness, but we don't have enough solid evidence to claim that's going to happen," claimed Maria Rosario Vergeire, Philippines Health Under-Secretary, in a virtual conference on Monday.
The strain was found in many other nations and has been the prevalent form in Europe and the United States, with the World Health Organisation saying there is no proof that the strain leads to more severe disease. Only the mutation was found in recent outbreaks in China.
There's no proof from epidemiology that the mutant is slightly more contagious than other types, said Benjamin Cowling, University of Hong Kong's head of epidemiology and biostatistics. "It's more widely known now than in the past, which suggests it may have a form of strategic benefit over other Covid-19 strains," he said.
As Southeast Asian countries take various measures to prevent a revival when reopening limited travel, they deal with people who break quarantine laws after returning from elsewhere as well as false-negative border check tests.
As he arrived in Malaysia the man who came back from India had tested negative. Since then, he has been sentenced to five months in jail and convicted for quarantine breach.
"People need to be cautious and take more measures because this strain has now been found in Malaysia," Health Director Noor Hisham Abdullah of the country wrote in a Facebook post, saying that the strain can make it 10 times more infectious without referencing a study. "Cooperation by the public is really important and we can break the line of disease from every mutation together."
The strain "could be a bit more contagious. We have not yet provided enough evidence to determine that, but there is no evidence that it's much more infectious, "said Cowling at the University of Hong Kong.
Noor Hisham warned that the strain could mean that existing vaccine research against the mutation may be incomplete or ineffective. This is even as a report published in Cell Press said the mutation is unlikely to have a significant influence on the safety of the vaccines being developed at the current.
While Malaysia has generally succeeded in preventing a revival of the virus seen elsewhere in the world, the amount of new cases found in the country has picked up. On Saturday the country recorded 26 new incidents, most since July 28.
Confirmed cases in the Philippines have increased from the end of July to a total of 164,474 as of Monday, 76 percent. About a week ago it overtook Indonesia to become the nation with the biggest outbreak in Southeast Asia.
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