JOHOR BARU: Johor is seeing a worrying trend in dengue cases with 1,758 cumulative cases up to epidemiological week 12 (ME12) this year, against 295 in the same period last year.
State health and unity committee chairman Ling Tian Soon said of this figure, 609 were epidemic locality cases while 1,149 were non-epidemic locality cases.
“We recorded 193 new cases for ME12 compared to 145 cases in ME11 this year," he said in a statement on Tuesday (March 28).
Ling said Johor Baru district had the most cases with 128, followed by Kulai (39), Batu Pahat (six), Muar (five), Kluang, Tangkak and Segamat (four each); and Kota Tinggi, Pontian and Mersing (one each).
“There were two deaths from ME1 to ME12 this year compared to no deaths in the same period last year," he added.
Ling said a total of 1,612 compound notices totalling RM763,000 were issued to owners of premises found with breeding places for Aedes mosquitoes and 41.1% of them had paid the fines.
On another matter, he said Johor recorded 398,890 Covid-19 cumulative cases as of Sunday (March 25), of which 395,860 were local infections and 3,030 were imported cases.
“There are 93 active cases with 68 undergoing home quarantine, 24 hospitalised and one patient in the intensive care unit (ICU)," said Ling.
He added statistics showing that Johor did not record a significant increase in Covid-19 cases in recent months and hospital bed usage was still under 1.0%.
Ling said the state Health Department also took note of the emergence of the new subvariant XBB1 in Singapore recently which contributed to the increase in Covid-19 cases there.
He said as of Sunday, Johor recorded 340 Covid-19 subvariant XBB cases, with 197 cases in Johor Baru.
This was followed by Muar (32), Kulai (28), Kluang (20), Kota Tinggi (19), Batu Pahat (18), Tangkak (14), Pontian (11) and Segamat (one).
“Although there are reports of subvariant XXB, the Covid-19 cases in Johor are still under control," he added.
