DG: No Covid-19 deaths in the country for 15 days

PUTRAJAYA: There have been no Covid-19 deaths in the country for 15 days and there were only three new cases reported, says Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

All three new cases were Malaysians – of which two were local transmission while the other was an import case, he said.

“Of the two local transmissions, one was detected in Selangor during screening, prior to treatment for blood cancer.

“Another case was detected in Sabah from screening at a wet market in Sandakan, ” said Dr Noor Hisham at the ministry’s Covid-19 press conference here.

On the import case, Dr Noor Hisham said the 28-year-old Malaysian had a recent travel history to Fiji and New Zealand, where he was denied entry into both countries.

The man also underwent quarantine in the two countries, before returning to Malaysia and testing positive for Covid-19. En route home, he had a transit stop at Singapore’s airport.

Dr Noor Hisham also said 16 more patients had been discharged, which means 8,334 patients have recovered from Covid-19 in Malaysia since the outbreak began.

This translates to a recovery rate of 96.4% out of the total number of cases in the country.

There are now only 182 active cases being treated at health facilities nationwide.

Currently, there are four patients in intensive care units with one patient requiring ventilator support.

The country’s death toll remained at 121 cases.

Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham warned individuals who were under home quarantine orders to comply with the rules that have been set, or risk having action taken against them.

He said 5,909 “persons under surveillance” (PUS) were discharged from quarantine centres on June 10 and put under home surveillance order (HSO), in order to complete 14 days of quarantine.

However, out of that total, only 4,427 individuals were recorded to have undergone Covid-19 testing at government or private clinics on the 13th day.

Of that number, three positive cases were detected.

“Therefore, a total of 1,472 individuals are still required to undergo Covid-19 testing on day 13.

“Failure to comply with the HSO is an offence, and individuals found to be in violation of the terms of the order can be fined or imprisoned or both, ” he said.

On another matter, Dr Noor Hisham said the ministry had begun active case detection and contact tracing activities after two Cambodians were found positive after arriving from Malaysia last weekend.

Dr Noor Hisham said one of the two was a student from a tahfiz in the country.

“We have begun active case detection to see which tahfiz the patient went to and we will trace the individual’s close contacts.

“The ministry will also work with the airlines to identify those who were seated two rows in front and two rows behind the patients.

“We will screen and test them.”

The other individual turned out to be Malaysia’s “Patient 1051” who had been admitted for Covid-19 in the past and discharged.

“One of the individuals is an old case in Malaysia – Case 1051, ” he said.

“Although the individual tested positive, it could be due to virus shedding, so it is not of much concern.

“The patient had been discharged but the virus could still be detected through a RT-PCR (reverse transmission-polymerase chain reaction) test.

“However, the virus is weak and not active.

“We will inform the Cambodian authorities that this is not a new case, but an old one that has been discharged.”