Almost 9,000 healthcare workers contracted COVID-19 this year - Health DG

In a Facebook post today, he said the number has been increasing from 284 cases in the first week of this year (Week 1/2022) to 3,343 cases in the sixth week (Week 6/2022).

Dr Noor Hisham said as of Feb 16, some 5,711 HCW (active cases) were absent from work after they tested positive for COVID-19 while 3,119 missed work after being identified as close contact, which constituted to about 3.1 per cent of Health Ministry (MOH) total workforce.

Meanwhile, 3,229 HCW that were COVID-19 positive have completed their isolation period and were now back at work and at the moment 80.3 per cent HCW in Malaysia have received their booster shot.

"In general, currently 93.3 per cent of the overall COVID-19 patients are under home isolation with follow up being carried out digitally," he said.

Dr Noor Hisham said MOH has taken measures to ensure minimal disruption to service and to care for both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients.

He said necessary steps and adaptive policy were introduced based on current available data and practices in other countries adding that MOH was also working with private healthcare facilities to assist in the management of COVID-19 patients.

Meanwhile, in another post, he said a total of 2,258,521 individuals or 67.7 per cent of the 3,335,309 elderly population have been given the booster dose as of Feb 7.

According to him, visits were made to 1,073 registered and unregistered homes for the elderly where 19,646 residents and 10,173 workers were given the first and second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.