PETALING JAYA: There were 24 new Covid-19 positive cases as fo 12pm yesterday, thus bringing the national tally to 9,583, the Health Ministry reported.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a media statement yesterday (Sept 9) that out of that number, 18 are local transmissions involving 16 Malaysians and two foreigners, while the remaining six are imported cases.
The local transmission cases were detected in Kedah (16) and two were in Sabah.
“Out of the 18 cases, 13 are in the Sungai cluster, one case in Telaga cluster, one in the Tawar cluster in Kedah while the remaining two cases are Sabah under the Benteng LD cluster,“ he said.
One case, which did not belong to any cluster, was detected through screening after the patient showed the virus symptoms in Kedah at Sultanah Bahiyah Hospital.
Out of the six imported cases, three were Malaysians and the other three were foreigners from Bangladesh (two cases in Negri Sembilan, one case in Kuala Lumpur), China (one case in Sabah), Indonesia (one in Sabah), Singapore (one case in Sarawak), and South Korea (one case in Selangor).
“The three foreigners that tested positive today entered the country before the border restriction was first enforced on Sept 7. The two cases from Bangladesh arrived in the country on Sept 6 while the one case from China entered the country on Sept 5 and was screened on the following day. The results for these imported cases reported positive today,“ he said.
Noor Hisham said currently the Sungai cluster which involves three states, Kedah (a total of 38 positive cases and 586 are waiting for results), Penang (30 pending results), and Perlis (one positive case and three are awaiting test results).
As for the Telaga cluster which involves Kedah and Penang , he said to date a total of 11 positive cases have been detected in Kedah, but there were no positive cases in Penang with only one pending test results.
The Tawar cluster on the other hand has reported 68 positive cases in Kedah, and 11 tested positive in Penang ,which brings the number of cumulative cases to 79.
The Benteng LD cluster in Sabah involves two districts, Tawau and Lahad Datu, with Tawau recording 43 positive cases while 1,146 are waiting for results and 87 tested positive in Lahad Datu and results for another 161 are still pending.
“This makes it a total of 130 cases under the Benteng LD cluster in Sabah,” he said.
No new death was reported yesterday, with the death toll remaining at 128.
Seven new cases were discharged yesterday which brings the total number of recoveries to 9,143.
However, seven patients are currently in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) which four of them require ventilator assistance.
Noor Hisham revealed in a statement that the positive cases among ministry personnel is mostly due to transmission among health workers themselves which accounts for a total of 53%.
“Based on the result of the investigation , 53% stands for more than half of health personnel infected with the Covid-19 virus and had contracted other health personnel. These frontliners got the infections mostly among themselves and only 22% got the virus from the community,“ he said.
He clarified that to date no ministry health workers were infected with the virus during handling Covid-19 patients.
Noor Hisham urged health personnel to ensure preventive measures are taken at all times, especially while on duty.
