KUALA LUMPUR, May 12 — Health authorities today reported 16 new Covid-19 cases, the lowest recorded in two months since nine cases on March 12.
According to the Ministry of Health (MOH), these 16 new cases comprised three imported cases and 13 local transmissions, bringing the total number of Covid-19 infections in the country to 6,742.
Among the 13 local transmission cases reported, nine involved foreigners. This indicates that only four Malaysians were infected today.
Currently, 16 patients are receiving treatment in the intensive care unit (ICU), while three are on ventilator support. Meanwhile, 110 patients were discharged, bringing the total number of patients who recovered from Covid-19 to 5223.
Malaysia’s coronavirus recovery rate is now at 77.5 per cent of the total number of positive cases until today.
Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah also reported that 1,410 active cases are being treated at present, while no new deaths were recorded today. The total number of deaths from Covid-19 remains at 109, or 1.62 per cent of the total reported cases.
To date, 7,416 samples have been taken among patients with severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) and 67 have tested positive, which is 0.9 per cent of the total SARI samples.
MOH also detected 14 positive Covid-19 cases among patients with influenza-like illness (ILI) from a total of 1,594 samples (0.94 per cent positivity rate).
Overall, there was a decline in Covid-19 cases detected through SARI screening. The 18th epidemiological week recorded much lower positive cases at a 0.13 per cent rate, compared to 8.7 per cent in week 13.
“This shows that serious and moderate SARI cases among Covid-19 patients have been declining,” Dr Noor Hisham said in a statement.
MOH health care workers have also been screened for coronavirus, where 65 out of 11,470 have tested positive as of today (0.57 per cent). Covid-19 screening has also been done on pre-surgery patients at MOH hospitals, with seven out of 8,528 testing positive for coronavirus (0.08 per cent).
MOH also conducted a passive surplus analysis on notifications received by the Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (CPRC) for persons-under-investigation at MOH and private facilities. So far, 95 Covid-19 positive cases have been detected from 30,155 tests conducted in private laboratories
Covid-19 cases have been dropping and remained low amid intensified surveillance activity and laboratory testing.
However, MOH urged the public not to be complacent with the decreasing trend of Covid-19 cases, urging Malaysians to comply with the Conditional Movement Control Order.
