KUALA LUMPUR, April 28 – Malaysia only recorded 22 new local transmission cases of Covid-19, said Health Director General, Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah today.
“As of April 29, 2020, at 12pm, 94 new cases have been reported. This brings the total number of Covid-19 positive cases in Malaysia to 5,945. Therefore, the number of active cases with Covid-19 infection was 1,758 cases,” he said in a statement today.
“Please note that out of the 94 new cases reported today, 72 cases were imported cases involving Malaysian citizens and students returning from Indonesia. This means that local transmission cases are only 22 cases.”
All of the 72 imported cases were detected in Negeri Sembilan, and makes up all of the cases in the state today.
40 patients are in intensive care. Out of this number, 18 individuals require ventilator support.
On a positive note, 55 people have recovered today, bringing the total number of discharged patients to 4,087 cases, or 68.75% of total cases.
No deaths were reported in today’s briefing, maintaining the death toll at 100.
Negeri Sembilan recorded the highest new cases, followed by Kuala Lumpur at 8, Sarawak at 6, Pahang at 5, Sabah at 2 and Selangor at 1. The remaining states and federal territories did not record any new cases today.
Separately, the DG also said that the MOH has been conducting tests and surveillance in both public and private sectors on the spread of the virus among the local communities.
“Surveillance includes: clinical surveillance such as Influenza Like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) in MOH clinics and hospitals; Covid-19 screening for health personnel; pre-emergency sampling at MOH hospital; as well as sampling in private laboratories.”
“ILI sampling was performed at eight MOH Health Clinic locations throughout the country known as sentinel sites. The sample covered all patients who came to these health clinics with fever symptoms (temperatures above 38 ° C) with cough and sore throat, but without any known risk to Covid-19.”
Five samples were taken from each sentinel location and sent for analysis.
As for SARI, COVID-19 detection testing for all patients with pneumonia infection were conducted in all MOH hospitals in Malaysia.
“To date, a total of 34,113 samples have been extracted from surplus activities. Of the total, 6,100 were clinical samples of patients with ILI / SARI, of which 71 were COVID-19 positive (which is 1.16 percent).
For ILI cases, analysis detected 8 positive cases among 1,322 samples; whereas for SARI cases, 63 cases from 4,778 samples were found to be positive.
“For SARI cases there was a significant decrease in Covid-19 positive cases during the 17th epidemiological week (April 25, 2020), where only three (3) samples were positively compared to 2,168 SARI cases taken (0.14 percent) compared to with the 12th week of epidemiology (March 28, 2020), in which 33 samples were positively confirmed from 263 total cases of SARI (up 11.15 percent),” the DG added.
As for the results of tests conducted in the private sector where they were sent to private laboratories, it was found that 84 positive cases were detected from 22,081 tests (0.38 percent).
“This activity is indeed a system of early detection and early warning system for transmission of Covid-19 in Malaysia,” Dr Noor Hisham explained.
“The MOH will continue to carry out Covid-19 surplus activities in Malaysia even after the end of the Movement Control Order, whereby these activities will continue to be intensified including in the private sector and involving various zones.”
