The COVID-19 virus has re-emerged in the second week of February in Rakhine State, according to the Rakhine State Health Department under the junta.

In Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State, 319 people were examined on 15 February and 50 were found with COVID-19 and another 285 passengers for the flights were examined and 12 more tested positive for COVID-19.

"The test means that if a positive patient comes out, we examine his or her relatives. The higher the screening rate, the more positive results come out. We found these kind of results now," Dr Soe Win Paing, assistant director of Rakhine State Health Department, told Mizzima.

A total of 72 patients were diagnosed with COVID-19 on the same day, 15 February, in Sittwe, Kyauk Phyu and Thandwe townships.

Nine people among the confirmed patients who had been exposed to a new strain of Omicron virus have been tested and the results are not yet known, Dr. Soe Win Paing said.

“We still don’t know about the results. Still doing laboratory tests and the results will be out today. We are only testing for COVID-19 so we can only say that it is a COVID-19 infection. It is not yet possible to say that Omicron viruses are infected," he added.

Figures for Myanmar show about 500,000 people have tested positive with over 19,000 deaths since the pandemic began.