KAPAR: The Health Ministry is actively conducting risk assessment following the emergence of a new Covid-19 variant Omicron.
Its minister Khairy Jamaluddin said this was crucial as Malaysians had started traveling overseas, including to European countries and performing umrah.
"At the same time, we have started reopening our border for fully vaccinated foreign visitors under a travel bubble, which is Langkawi, where visitors no longer have to undergo quarantine.
"(And) on Nov 29, we will begin our Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) with Singapore. As such, we have been actively conducting a risk assessment to beef up against the variant," he told reporters after the handover of Kapar Health Clinic today.
He said the move would also see if there was a need to add new countries to the newly-announced travel restriction list.
"Since this development (of the new variant) is quite dynamic, we are monitoring the development on an hourly basis, based on the reports we have been receiving from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other countries on the existence of Omicron worldwide.
"All this will help the ministry to decide whether to expand the restriction travel list.
"We will monitor the history of travellers who have been confirmed with this variant and their travel histories.
"Should the risk assessment of a country increase, the ministry will put the respective country on the red list, where travel restriction will be imposed."
Khairy, however, said, no Omicron variant had been detected in the country as of today, based on genomic surveillance.
Recently, WHO has declared Omicron as a "variant of concern".
The world health body said the new coronavirus had a large number of mutations, and early evidence suggested an increased re-infection risk.
The new coronavirus was first reported to the WHO from South Africa on Nov 24 and it has also been identified in Botswana, Belgium, Hong Kong and Israel.
Yesterday, Malaysia announced a temporary entry ban on foreigners from several southern African countries without permanent resident (PR) status or working visas following the discovery of Omicron.
The travel ban will take effect from today.
Malaysians also were prohibited from visiting South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
Meanwhile, on the weekly Covid-19 screening tests for primary school students beginning Monday, Khairy said it would be done randomly on at least 10 per cent of the student population in a school.
As per the strategy, students will undergo a Covid-19 self-test and monitored by their respective schools.
Khairy said the cost of the screening tests would be borne by the Education Ministry.