95 Malaysian returnees found positive for COVID-19 - Health DG

There were 95 positive COVID-19 cases detected from 12,160 Malaysians undergoing quarantine after returning from overseas so far, said Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

He said from the total, 7,910 individuals had their samples taken since April 3.

Therefore, he said the move to isolate all Malaysians who returned from abroad at quarantine stations under the Movement Control Order (MCO) was a right move to curb the spread of the outbreak.

“The matter (positive cases of Malaysians returning from abroad) was expected, considering more than 180 countries in the world are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The proactive measure (quarantine) saw a rise in the number of cases reported in the state they are quarantined, for example, there was an increase of 37 cases in Melaka, 32 in the federal territories of Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya; three in Sarawak; three in Johor and two in Selangor.

“The positive cases were separated and given treatment at the hospital,” he said at the daily COVID-19 media conference at Health Ministry (MOH) today.

On the monitoring of COVID-19 infection, Dr Noor Hisham said MOH is conducting sampling among patients with symptoms of influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) since Feb 2.

He said so far 56 cases out of 2,669 SARI samples taken were found positive which is 2.1 per cent of the total.

“For ILI samples, there were eight positive COVID-19 cases identified from 1,280 samples taken or 0.6 per cent,” he said.

He explained that MOH would continue to expand and strengthen monitoring of COVID-19 activities in Malaysia including tracing among the high-risk groups and areas under Enhanced Movement Control Order (EMCO).

On the development of positive cases at EMCO localities, Dr Noor Hisham said there was one new case in Selangor Mansion, Kuala Lumpur today.

“This brings the total positive cases in Selangor Mansion to 85 cases and there were no additional cases in other EMCO areas.

To date, six EMCO directives were enforced in three states namely Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Johor and Selangor.

In this regard, he said six clusters which recorded new cases were at Madrasah Sungai Salan, Pahang (eight cases); Italy PUI (five cases); church gathering (four cases); Sarawak health personnel (two cases) while KL Medical Centre and Madrasah Ayer Merbau Melaka had one case each.

There are more than 30 clusters linked to COVID-19 detected in the country.

-- BERNAMA