COVID-19: One death, 14 new cases - Health D-G

Another COVID-19 fatality was reported today, bringing the overall death toll in the country to 128, or 1.37 per cent of the total number of cases, said Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

He said the latest fatality involved an 80-year-old Malaysian woman, who was among the positive cases reported on Aug 15 in the Tawar Cluster and who also had a history of lung cancer and high blood pressure.

“She first showed symptoms of fever and chest pains on Aug 6 and was admitted to a medical centre. On Aug 14, she was transferred to the Penang General Hospital after being found to be COVID-19 positive.

“Her condition deteriorated due to complications from her lung cancer and had been on ventilator support since Aug 24. She was confirmed to have died at 10.38 am on Sept 1,” he said at a press conference on COVID-19 today.

Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham also announced that 14 new cases were reported today, bringing the cumulative figure for positive cases to 9,354.

He explained that five of the new cases were imported and that they all involved foreigners.

“Therefore, the number of active COVID-19 cases is 151.

“The five imported cases were from Ukraine (one case in Selangor), Pakistan and Indonesia (one case each in Selangor) and the Philippines (two cases in Sabah),” he said.

Meanwhile, there were nine local transmissions, with five involving Malaysians -- two in Kedah (one each from the Tawar Cluster and Telaga Cluster) and three in Sabah.

“In Sabah, one case is from a new cluster, which is the Benteng LD (Lahad Datu) Cluster, one a Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) patient from the Lahad Datu Hospital and one from a detainee screening in prison,” he said.

The four local transmissions involving foreigners were from the Benteng LD Cluster in Sabah.

He said there were 21 cases of full recovery from COVID-19 today, taking the cumulative total number of full recoveries to 9,075 cases, or 97 per cent of the total overall cases.

Meanwhile, five COVID-19 positive patients are being treated in the intensive care unit, with three needing ventilator support.

As for the breakdown on the Tawar Cluster, Dr Noor Hisham said that in Kedah, of the 17,355 people screened, 64 tested, 15,853 were negative and 1,418 still awaiting their results. In Penang, of the 534 people screened, 11 tested positive and the rest negative; while in Perak, all 11 screened tested negative.

For the Telaga Cluster, a total of 1,008 people had been screened as of noon today, with six being tested positive in Kedah.

In Penang, one case is still awaiting the result. The rest of the screenings were done in Kedah, where apart from the six who tested positive, there were 968 who tested negative and 33 others still awaiting results.

-- BERNAMA