Covid-19: New cases breach 20 mark again, three new clusters detected

CORONAVIRUS | Health authority continues to record a rising number of daily Covid-19 positive cases, with 21 cases reported as of noon today.

According to a statement by Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, 16 of the positive cases were locally transmitted involving 13 Malaysians and three non-citizens, while the rest were imported cases.

The ministry also announced the discovery of three more infection clusters involving a foreign shipping crew and two Malaysians who returned to the country from overseas recently.

"As of noon July 24, 2020, there were 21 new cases reported. This brought the cumulative number of Covid-19 positive cases in Malaysia to 8,861.

"And thus, the number of active cases with infectability is now at 161. All of them have been isolated and given treatment," said Noor Hisham.

The number of Covid-19 positive patients who are being treated at intensive care units remains at five, of which two were depending on ventilators.

No new death related to Covid-19 was reported as of noon Friday, and the number of fatality cases remains at 123, or 1.39 percent.

Breakdown of new cases

According to Noor Hisham's statement, the five import cases reported on Friday involve three Malaysian returnees and two non-citizens, one of whom is married to Malaysian while the other was allowed into the country for work purposes.

They had arrived from Singapore, Australia, the Philippines, Pakistan and Qatar, respectively.

On the locally transmitted cases, Noor Hisham said the three non-Malaysians found positive were linked to two clusters.

One of the cases were detected in Johor, related to the Kluang old folks home cluster. The two other non-Malaysians were linked to a new cluster announced today, named the Elsa Cluster.

The 13 locally transmitted cases which involve Malaysians were detected in Kuala Lumpur (two cases), Selangor (one), Johor (one), Pahang (one), and Sarawak (eight).

The three cases in KL and Selangor were related to two other new clusters detected by MOH, namely the PUI Ramnad cluster and PUI Al Khobar cluster.

All eight new cases reported in Sarawak today came from the Sentosa Cluster, which involves a medical centre in Kuching.

Three new clusters originated from imported cases

Noor Hisham said three new cases detected by the MOH were all related to travellers who entered the country recently.

According to him, the Elsa Cluster was traced to its index case of a non-Malaysian who works as a ship crew and had arrived in Malaysia from the Philippines on July 16.

The patient had been tested negative prior to his departure from the Philippines and had been allowed to undergo the mandatory quarantine on the vessel where he works. However, on July 20, he started showing symptoms and was tested positive of Covid-19 two days later.

Following this, the MOH has carried out contact tracing activities and screened 108 individuals, of which three of them had been tested positive so far. A total of 48 others were found negative, while 57 are still pending result.

The PUI Ramnad Cluster, meanwhile, involves an index case of a Malaysian who returned from India on July 6.

The individual was tested negative during screening at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport and was placed under home quarantine.

On July 19, the individual started showing symptoms before a second test returned with a positive result.

Contact tracing activities found that two others, both are family members of the returnee, positive of the coronavirus.

The third new cluster today - PUI Al Khobar Cluster - involves a Malaysian who returned from Saudi Arabia on July 10 together with five other family members.

All of them were tested negative during screening at KLIA and were allowed to undergo home quarantine at their house where they live together with two other family members.

However, during the quarantine, the individual started to show symptoms on July 18 and was tested positive of Covid-19 two days later.

Tests conducted on seven others revealed that one of them had also been infected with the virus, while the others were negative.