Malaysia announced its first positive case of the Omicron variant earlier today, with health minister Khairy Jamaluddin stating that the index case was detected from a sample of a private university student in Ipoh, Perak, who arrived in the country via Singapore last month.

In a Twitter post tonight, health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the second test on the 19-year-old student, and all seven close contacts, had come back negative.

“Latest from Perak. All eight samples of today’s RT-PCR test for the Omicron variant came back negative, which is the index case for the first Omicron case in the country (South African) and seven close contacts; the driver, a university employee, three schoolmates (two from Ghana and one from India) and two roommates,” he tweeted.

At a press conference today, Khairy said the country’s index case of the Omicron variant involved a 19-year-old female non-citizen who arrived from South Africa via Singapore on Nov 19 and had undergone a Covid-19 PCR test upon arrival at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).

She was quarantined for 10 days before being released on Nov 29.

Khairy said the results of the student’s PCR genotyping assay test that came back yesterday confirmed that she was infected with the Omicron variant.

He said the student had taken a bus to Ipoh and close contact tracing had been carried out on the other bus passengers and drivers, involving five people.