KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 18 — A total of 19,989 health care workers from the Ministry of Health (MOH) have been infected with Covid-19 as of August 31 this year, including 17 fatalities.
The Covid-19 case fatality rate in this group was 0.09 per cent, about 12 times lower than the average 1.1 per cent rate nationwide on August 31.
Most health care workers had received Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine.
Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said in a written October 14 parliamentary reply to Senator Ahmad Yahya that the 17 fatalities among MOH workers were recorded in seven nurses, two medical specialists, two health treatment assistants (pembantu perawatan kesihatan), two administrative assistants, and one assistant environmental health officer, one public health assistant, one customer service officer, and one dental technician.
“As for the source of infection, 15 individuals were infected from the community, including family members, one from a patient, and one who got infected from a coworker,” said Khairy, referring to the 17 MOH workers who succumbed to the disease.
He added that the MOH worker who got infected by a patient and later died from Covid-19 was a nurse.