KUALA LUMPUR, June 19 — The Ministry of Health reported just six Covid-19 cases today, among them an index patient behind a new cluster found in Sarawak.
Two of the cases were contracted abroad involving a Malaysian national and a foreigner with a permanent resident status, Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said.
The rest are local transmissions. One of the patients was a tahfiz school student and while the other was a university student, the index case behind a small cluster in Sarawak.
Those in the cluster are his family members.
“The index case is a student with an institution of higher learning and when contact tracing was done we found his father, mother and two siblings were positive of Covid-19,” Dr Noor Hisham said at the ministry’s daily Covid-19 briefing in Putrajaya.
“A friend of the father was also found to be positive.”
From the cluster, 231 close contacts had been screened and 163 came out negative. Health authorities are still investigating the source of infection.
The country’s daily cases have hovered between single and double digits in the last three weeks with today’s figure being among the lowest reported.
The number of patients discharged has also remained high. Today, 70 patients were declared Covid-19 free to make the cumulated number of those treated at 8,070 from the 8,535 total cases.
The number of active cases is now just 344.
The MOH has declared the country to be in a recovery phase.
Dr Noor Hisham said today public health authorities will continue to conduct community surveillance and beef up health facilities.
The government increased its testing and treatment capacity before it decided to reopen the economy, and said it is prepared should cases spike again.
