KUALA LUMPUR, June 17 — The Ministry of Health (MOH) today identified a new Covid-19 cluster in Sabah that infected two ward staff from Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Kota Kinabalu.
The first case of this cluster (Patient 8,403) was a senior citizen who died at home on June 12 due to complications of heart disease. The patient was taken to the forensic department of Queen Elizabeth Hospital and found positive in a Covid-19 test.
Earlier, Patient 8,403 had been receiving treatment for heart disease at Queen Elizabeth II Hospital.
Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah stated that a total of 63 people, including health care workers and family members of Patient 8,403, were identified and tested for Covid-19. Two staff from the hospital were found positive for Covid-19.
“Services at Queen Elizabeth 2 Hospital are not affected and are continuing as usual. The source of infection in this cluster is still under investigation,” he said in a statement.
MOH reported 10 new Covid-19 cases today. Of the new cases, seven Malaysians and three foreigners were infected with Covid-19 in the country.
No imported case was reported today. The total number of Covid-19 infections climbed to 8,515.
One of three foreigners was identified as a close contact of Patient 8,455 in Kuala Lumpur.
Another detainee, who was transferred from the Bukit Jalil immigration detention centre to Port Dickson immigration academy, also contracted coronavirus.
The third foreigner was a patient identified from pre-surgery screening in Sabah.
At the same time, five new Covid-19 cases involving Malaysians consisted of four patients identified from the old folks’ home cluster in Kuala Selangor and a case from the screening of tahfiz schools.
Two more Covid-19 cases in East Malaysia involving Malaysians were also reported today. A family member of Patient 8,453 (labelled by the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee as Patient 557 in the state) and a close contact of the deceased Patient 8,403 were infected with Covid-19 in Sarawak and Sabah respectively.
Today, 140 patients were discharged from hospital, bringing the total number of recovered cases to 7,873.
A total of 521 Covid-19 patients are still receiving treatment at hospital, while four patients are in the intensive care unit.
No death was reported today, which brings the Covid-19 death toll in the country to stay at 121.
