A total of 14 COVID-19 new cases were reported today, with 11 of them being local transmissions while the remaining three were import cases.

Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said this takes the cumulative number of COVID-19 positive cases in Malaysia to 8,718.

He said there are currently 77 active cases.

“As for the new cases, three are imported, all involving Malaysians, while among the 11 local transmissions, three are Malaysians and eight involve foreigners,” he said in a statement today.

Dr Noor Hisham said of the local transmissions involving Malaysians, one was detected during a pre-referral screening in Sabah while the other two are in Sarawak.

The two cases in Sarawak, Dr Noor Hisham said, involve one symptomatic pre-screening case at a medical centre in Kuching and a close contact of case 8,694 who is part of the Kuching Engineering new cluster.

“As for the local transmissions involving foreign nationals (eight cases), they were close contacts of case 8,629 and case 8,630 at the Sepang Immigration Detention Centre and were detected during screenings,” he added.

Meanwhile, he said four patients had recovered and allowed to be discharged today, bringing the cumulative number of recovered cases to 8,519 or 97.7 per cent of the total number of cases.

Also, no new fatalities were reported, and the death toll remains at 122 or 1.39 per cent of the total number of cases, Dr Noor Hisham said.

He said three patients are being treated at the intensive care unit (ICU), with two of them requiring ventilator support.

-- BERNAMA