Malaysia Says It Has Detected New Coronavirus Strain Which Is '10 Times More Infectious' - What We Know So Far

As the world is already battling to the increasing cases of COVID-19 day by day, Malaysia has detected a strain of the new coronavirus which is 10 times more infectious.

As per the report by Bloomberg, the mutation named D614G was found in at least three of the 45 cases in a cluster that started from a restaurant owner who returned from India. The man had breached his 14-day home quarantine and currently serving his 5 months term in prison for that.

The existing vaccine studies can be incomplete or ineffective against this mutation, said Director-General of Health Noor Hisham Abdullah.

“People need to be aware and be more careful because the COVID-19 virus with D614G mutation has been detected in Malaysia," he wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday.

The mutation has become the predominant variant in Europe and the US, however, the World Health Organization has already said there’s no evidence the strain leads to more severe disease.

According to the research, published in the journal Cell, a variant of the novel coronavirus, named 'D614G', is more infectious in cell cultures under laboratory conditions.

However, another paper published in Cell Press said the mutation is not likely to have a major impact on the effectiveness of vaccines which are currently being developed.

The D614G variant first came to our attention in early April after the results of a study on the variant, published in the journal Cell.