Pahang health dept denies outbreak of Zoonotic Malaria

KUANTAN: The Pahang Health Department today denied the report that 64 cases of zoonotic malaria infection were purportedly being treated at the paediatric ward of Hospital Tengku Ampuan Afzan (HTAA) here as viralled in the social media since Dec 19.
Its Director, Dr Shaári Ngadiman emphasised that the report was inaccurate and did not give a true picture of the situation on the spread of zoonotic malaria in the state of Pahang.
"For the year 2017 from January up to Dec 16, a total of 85 malaria cases had been reported for the whole state of Pahang and of that total, 77 cases (91%) were zoonotic malaria while the remaining eight cases (9%) were imported cases of human malaria infection," he said in a statement issued here today.
Based on the overall number of zoonotic malaria cases, he said the district with the highest number of cases reported was Lipis with 38 cases, Jerantut (15 cases), Rompin (6 cases), Temerloh (5 cases), Bera (4 cases), Kuantan (3 cases) Maran (2 cases), Raub (2 cases) and one case each in Bentong and Cameron Highlands.
So far, he said, there was one fatal case of malaria reported in Pahang which happened in the district of Lipis. — Bernama