KUALA LUMPUR, March 9 — Malaysia has recorded an additional 18 new cases of the novel coronavirus, bringing the total number of Covid-19 cases in the country to a staggering 117.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) said all 18 individuals have been isolated from the public for follow-up treatment. It did not identify their nationalities or whether they are linked to previous Covid-19 cases.
“Close contact tracing for these cases are also being identified for investigation and sample collection,” Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a statement today.
Dr Noor Hisham did, however, say that Patient 101 involves a man who recently returned from Iran, a new coronavirus hotspot, killing at least 194 and affecting 6,566 people so far.
“The case, together with his business partner, went to Iran on February 20 to February 27, 2020.
‘The case was detected as symptomatic on March 5, 2020, and was confirmed to be positive with Covid-19 on March 8, 2020.
“Now, the case has been treated and has been admitted in the isolation ward of Hospital Tuanku Jaafar, Negeri Sembilan,” Dr Noor Hisham said.
He added that among the cases in Malaysia’s second Covid-19 cluster, numbering cases 23 to 117, only six were reported among patients-under-investigations and with a history of traveling abroad.
“While the other cases, on the other hand, involve a cluster that is made out of close contacts and has similarities among each other,” he said, without explaining further.
Of the total 117 cases, 19 were detected among patients-under-investigations for Covid-19, 96 from close contact, and two more from humanitarian missions. Two of these cases require breathing aid.
Dr Noor Hisham, meanwhile, said that Covid-19 screening to detect sporadic cases in Malaysia with influenza-like-illness or severe acute respiratory infection, but who had no history of traveling to Covid-19 stricken countries, found no coronavirus patients.
A total of 574 samples were tested, he added.
