Health Ministry: Five of six Covid-19 deaths Thursday (April 1) are Malaysians

PUTRAJAYA: Six people in the country died of Covid-19 on Thursday (April 1), taking Malaysia's death toll to 1,278.

Read more here: Covid-19: 1,178 new cases for 346,678 total, six fatalities bring death toll to 1,278

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said two deaths were reported in Sarawak and one each in Kuala Lumpur, Johor, Kelantan and Sabah.

"Five of the deaths are Malaysians and one is a foreigner. The ministry extends its condolences to all family members," said Dr Noor Hisham in his daily Covid-19 updates.

The deceased were aged from 54 to 81 years old and all had co-morbidities such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

The deceased foreigner, a 69-year-old woman with a history of gout, was pronounced "dead upon arrival" at Hospital Keningau in Sabah.

At present, there are 163 patients under intensive care in the country.

Of that total, 81 are on ventilator support.

Malaysia recorded 1,178 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday, taking the cumulative total to 346,678.

There are 20 cases that are imported infections, while the rest are local transmissions.

Dr Noor Hisham said Sarawak and Selangor topped the list of states with most new cases with 238 and 237, respectively.

"Of Sarawak's 238 cases, 162 are traced from close contacts of Covid-19 positive cases. About 21 are from existing clusters.

"Selangor's cases include 130 detected from contact tracing and 33 were uncovered from clusters," he said.

The daily total is a slight improvement from the 1,482 cases recorded on Wednesday (March 31).

Another 1,377 patients were discharged from hospitals, bringing the total number of recoveries to 331,001 or 95.5% of all cases.

There are now 14,399 active cases nationwide.