New COVID-19 cases remain at three digits, six deaths - Health DG

KUALA LUMPUR: The number of new COVID-19 infections in the country in the last 24-hours remained at three digits with 354 cases recorded, while six deaths were reported.

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the case tally now stood at 14,722, with 3,863 active cases.

The majority of new infections were in Sabah with 274 cases, this after more screenings were done by the Health Ministry (MOH), especially in the seven districts under administrative Enhanced Movement Control Order (EMCO).

“In Kedah, only 10 cases were recorded following the successful control of the Tembok cluster.

“In Selangor there were 24 cases, Kuala Lumpur 10 cases and two cases in Putrajaya," he said in a media conference via the MOH’s Facebook page today.

Dr Noor Hisham said 10 cases were reported in Sarawak, Penang (eight cases), Johor and Terengganu (five cases each), Negeri Sembilan (four cases) and one case each in Perak and Labuan.

Of the new cases reported, 352 were local transmissions while two more were import cases involving Malaysian returnees from India and Oman.

He said 332 of the local transmissions were Malaysians and the rest foreigners.

“Of the local transmissions, 23 cases were those who returned from Sabah, bringing the total number of cases with a travel history to Sabah since Sept 20 to 324 cases," he said.

On the six new fatalities, Dr Noor Hisham said all of the cases involved Malaysians in Sabah, taking the country’s death toll to 152.

He said the two deaths at Tawau Hospital involved a 54-year-old man (147th fatality) with a history of high blood pressure and asthma and a 58-year-old woman (150th death).

At Semporna Hospital, the 148th fatality involved a 68-year-old man, while the 151st death was a 57-year-old woman with a history of high blood pressure.

“At Queen Elizabeth Hospital, the two deaths involved a 66-year-old woman (149th death) with diabetes, high blood pressure and tuberculosis and a 64-year-old man (152nd death) with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH),” he said.

Dr Noor Hisham said 188 recoveries were reported today, taking the cumulative number of recoveries to 10,707 cases or 72.7 per cent of the case tally.

He said 68 patients, meanwhile, were being treated in the intensive care unit, of which 25 require ventilator support.

-- BERNAMA