PUTRAJAYA, March 9 — The Health Ministry (MOH) confirmed 18 new Covid-19 cases as of noon today, bringing the national total to 117 cases.
MOH director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said that all of the patients have been identified and isolated for immediate treatment.
“The close contacts of these cases are also being identified for investigations and sample swapping.
“The MOH would like to inform about a case (No. 101) which was detected among the Patient Under Investigation (PUI), involved a man who had just returned from Iran. This case, together with his business partner, had gone to Iran between February 20 and February 27, 2020.
“The person was detected to show symptoms on March 5, 2020 and was tested positive for Covid-19 on March 8, 2020. Latest, the case has been treated and admitted into the isolation ward at the Tuanku Jaafar Hospital in Negri Sembilan,” he said.
Dr Noor Hisham said that of the total number, 19 cases were detected among PUIs infected with Covid-19, 96 cases from among close contacts and two others had contracted it while on a humanitarian mission.
He said that of cases involved in the second wave of the virus spread (from cases 23 till 117), only six cases were among PUIs, who have overseas travel history.
“Meanwhile, the other cases involve a cluster made up of close contacts and whom have similarities among them.
“Additionally, MOH had also conducted Covid-19 surveillance to identify isolated or sporadic cases in Malaysia, via influenzalike-illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI), among those with no travel history to affected countries, or had close contact with covid-19 positive cases,” he said.
Dr Noor Hisham added that to date, 574 samples from the above-mentioned cases were tested and no samples tested positive for the virus.
“Based on timely information, for now, there are no Covid-19 sporadic cases identified via this surveillance,” he added.
As of today, 3,803 deaths have been recorded globally, with 109,795 confirmed cases, while 60,695 have been cured, according to MOH’s statistics.
Covid-19 cases have been reported in 105 nations to date.
