A total of 31 new COVID-19 cases were reported today involving 28 local transmission cases and three imported cases, bringing the cumulative number of cases to 9,946, said Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

He said that of the 28 locally transmitted cases, 19 involved Malaysians while the other nine were foreigners with 23 cases detected in Sabah, four in Negeri Sembilan involving the Bunga Cluster and one case linked to the Sungai Cluster, Kedah.

In Sabah, 17 cases from the Benteng Lahad Datu Cluster, of which, eight cases involved foreigners, one case from screening of senior citizens at the Merotai Health Clinic, one case from screening of patients with severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) at Lahad Datu Hospital.

“One case detected during pre-surgical screening at Queen Hospital in Kudat, one case from referral screening at Tawau Hospital, one case from contact tracing of case 9,454, involving the child of case 9,454 and one case through screening of detainees at the Kudat district police headquarters,” he said in a statement on the development of COVID-19 today.

For the three imported cases, Dr Noor Hisham said that all of them were from Indonesia involving two Malaysians in Sabah and one Indonesian in Kuala Lumpur who entered the country on Aug 31.

According to Dr Noor Hisham, the number of active cases with infectivity is 615 while seven cases had recovered, bringing the cumulative number of recovered cases to 9,203 (92.5 per cent of the total cases).

“To date, there are 11 positive cases of COVID-19 being treated at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), with five cases requiring respiratory assistance,” he said.

There was no increase in deaths reported and the death toll remained at 128.

On the latest status of the Benteng Lahad Datu Cluster, Dr Noor Hisham said that as of 12 noon today, a total of 5,402 individuals had been screened involving 1,421 individuals in Lahad Datu and another 3,981 in Tawau, with 17 new cases detected, one in Lahad Datu and the rest in Tawau.

“Based on the total number of screenings for this cluster, the breakdown involves 913 prisoners and detainees, with 391 of them testing positive, and 987 staff of Lahad Datu district police headquarters and Tawau Prison with 10 positive cases.

“Besides that, a total of 1,234 family members of staff and prisoners were also screened with nine testing positive, 1,387 social contacts were screened with 10 being detected positive. A total of 881 other government agency officers have tested negative for COVID-19,” he said.

As for the Bunga Cluster, a total of 59 individuals were screened with four new cases reported through the second sampling of a total of 22 ship crew members who are still on board the ship docked at Port Dickson, thus making the total number of positive cases linked to the cluster to 10 cases.

“The screening conducted in Selangor (involving 10 individuals) with four confirmed positive while the other six testing negative; in Negeri Sembilan (where 45 were screened) with six detected to be positive and the other 39 testing negative, while in Terengganu, four were screened and all tested negative,” he said, adding that the screening involved 45 Malaysians and 14 foreigners.

Meanwhile, for the Sungai Cluster in Kedah, a total of 16,775 individuals were screened with one new positive case detected.

-- BERNAMA