Health Ministry: Another 18 Covid-19 cases reported, no new deaths (updated)

Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

PETALING JAYA: A total of 18 new Covid-19 cases were reported on Sunday (June 28), bringing the total number of infections to 8,634.

Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said there are currently 195 active Covid-19 cases.

"All of them have been isolated and treated," he said.

Out of the 18 new cases, four are imported cases involving three Malaysians and a foreigner who is either a Malaysian resident or was allowed entry for work purposes.

The rest of the cases are local infections among foreigners in Malaysia.

"There are no local cases involving Malaysians," said Dr Noor Hisham in a statement on Sunday.

Out of the 14 local cases, nine were from the Pedas cluster in Negri Sembilan, two from the Sepang Immigration depot cluster, two were detected in Sabah and another in Kuala Lumpur.

One of the cases in Sabah involved an inmate who was screened before being released from prison while the other was detected in a patient with severe respiratory acute infection.

The case in Kuala Lumpur was detected at a construction site.

Currently, two Covid-19 patients are being treated at intensive care units and none are on ventilators.

Dr Noor Hisham also said 10 Covid-19 patients have recovered and discharged, which means the recovery rate is 96.3%.

There were no new deaths reported and the death toll remains at 121.

He also said only 4.3% of foreigners screened for Covid-19 tested positive for the disease.

"Since June 27, we tested 60,298 foreigners and 95.3% of them came back negative. We are still waiting for test results of 0.4% or 282 of those tested," he said.

Dr Noor Hisham said 105 foreigners who tested positive are still being treated while 2,465 have recovered and been discharged.

There were also five deaths involving infected foreigners.

Dr Noor Hisham said the nine cases from the Pedas cluster reported Sunday had also been under quarantine because they had been exposed to the virus.

He added employers have a role to play to ensure workers follow standard operating procedures to curb the rise of Covid-19 infections as Malaysia enters the recovery phase.