KUALA LUMPUR, May 9 — A new Covid-19 cluster with at least 12 confirmed cases has been discovered among a group of foreign construction workers in Setia Alam, Selangor, said the Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah today.

Dr Noor Hisham explained that the Ministry of Health was alerted by a private hospital to its discovery on Wednesday after screening foreign workers who were set to return to work.

"The hospital conducted Covid-19 tests on these workers who were supposed to return to work and found three of them were confirmed Covid-19 positive from the five workers who were screened,” he said in a statement issued today.

Dr Noor Hisham said checks found that the three positive cases were all Bangladeshi nationals who lived in shared accommodation together with 18 other people, triggering an immediate tracing exercise of the three patients’ close contacts.

"Up till noon on May 9, a total of 28 people have been screened for Covid-19.

"From this total, 12 cases were found to be positive with all cases involving Bangledeshi nationals; nine cases have come back negative while the results of seven cases are still pending,” he wrote in a statement today.

Dr Noor Hisham added investigations are underway to establish the source and index case of the infection behind the new cluster.

This after a separate new cluster among foreign security guards at a mall in Cheras with 10 infections to date was announced on Thursday by Dr Noor Hisham.