SINGAPORE — There is “no truth whatsoever” of a “Singapore variant” of COVID-19, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said on Tuesday night (18 May), in response to media queries about two reports from two Indian media companies.
The reports referred to by MOH are Hindustan Times ("Coronavirus variant found in Singapore can be India's 3rd wave, extremely dangerous for kids, warns Arvind Kejriwal") and NDTV (“Stop Singapore Flights: Arvind Kejriwal To Centre Over New Covid Strain”), both published on Tuesday.
“The strain that is prevalent in many of the COVID-19 cases in recent weeks is the B.1.617.2 variant, which originated in India. Phylogenetic testing has shown this B.1.617.2 variant to be associated with several clusters in Singapore,” MOH said.
In a statement on Saturday, MOH flagged the challenge of the B.1.617 variant of COVID-19 prevalent in South Asia, saying the strain is not just a Singapore problem but a global one, as highlighted by the World Health Organisation.
The number of imported cases from South Asia over the past 28 days was 271, MOH said then.
MOH previously reported a total of 131 cases of the India variants – B.1.617 and B.1.617.1-3 – detected in Singapore as of 3 May.
In its latest report based on submissions from Singapore's researchers on 28 April, Gisaid, the world's largest database of novel coronavirus genome sequences, reported a total of 156 cases of the India variants in Singapore over the past four weeks.