KUALA LUMPUR, March 6 — Twenty-eight more people have been confirmed Covid-19 positive, bringing to 83 the total number of cases in the country, said Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
He said the 83 cases, reported as at 12 noon today, comprised 65 Malaysians, 15 China nationals and one citizen each of the United States, Japan and Italy.
“All these cases have been traced for further treatment. The close contacts of these cases are being identified for further investigation and sample taking,” he said in a statement today.
He said 956 close contacts had been identified and of this number, 258 close contacts of the cluster linked to the 26th case have been traced and have had their samples taken.
“From this cluster, 18 people were confirmed Covid-19 positive and 70 people were found negative but placed under home surveillance and observation order for 14 days. Another 170 of those traced are still awaiting their laboratory results,” he added.
Dr Noor Hisham also said case 24 had recovered and been discharged from the Kuala Lumpur Hospital.
“This case has been successfully treated and all close contacts of the case have been traced and the spread of Covid-19 for this cluster has been contained. This brings to 23 the number of cases fully recovered and discharged from the wards so far,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said the Health Ministry is still conducting investigation and close contact tracing activities to determine the sources of infection to check the spread of the virus.
“The ministry has conducted Covid-19 surveillance to detect sporadic and local cases in Malaysia through influenza-like-illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) patients who have no links to travel history to affected countries or contact with Covid-19 positive cases.
“As of today, 430 samples have been tested and so far no samples were found to be Covid-19 positive. For now no sporadic cases of Covid-19 have been detected through these surveillance activities,” said Dr Noor Hisham.
Dr Noor Hisham also said that under the Code of Professional Conduct of the Medical (Amendment) Act 2012 and Medical Regulations, medical practitioners must ensure the confidentiality of their patients, unless the patients themselves decide to make public their personal particulars.
As such, the ministry would always protect the personal particulars of patients while continuing to disseminate vital information, especially if it is relevant to public health interests.
He said based on the health ministry’s assessment so far, the Covid-19 infection was still under control and at the early containment level.
“In this connection, the public are asked to give their full cooperation to the ministry for the process of investigation, close contact tracing and treatment of patients.
“Close contacts of positive cases will be identified by the ministry through health teams at the District Health Office and those identified will be contacted for investigation and examination,” he added.
Meanwhile, organisers of official activities in public places are encouraged to evaluate programmes involving mass participation to determine if they are suitable to be staged, and if necessary to take preventive measures.
— Bernama
