Patient found unconscious leads to discovery of new Sabah Covid-19 cluster

COVID-19 | Malaysia has reported 23 new Covid-19 cases today, of which 10 were imported cases and 13 were locally transmitted.

This included a new cluster - the Pulau cluster - that was discovered when a 68-year-old was found unconscious at home in Kunak, Sabah.

Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the index case (Case 9,940) was referred to Kunak Hospital for treatment for heart attack, stroke, and liver disease, where a Covid-19 screening was also conducted and showed her to be positive for the disease on Sunday.

“She is now being treated in an intensive care unit and requires ventilator support.

“Following contact tracing and active case detection, eight more Covid-19 cases have been found. All eight are family members of the index case,” he told a press conference in Putrajaya today.

Noor Hisham said 128 people have been screened in this cluster, of which 18 tested negative and 101 are still pending results.

The Pulau cluster is the third Sabah cluster to be reported since Sept 1, when the Benteng LD cluster was first reported.

For the Benteng LD cluster, Noor Hisham said four new cases have been detected in Lahad Datu today, bringing the total to 424 cases so far. All four are detainees.

Thus far, 6,610 people have been tested for Covid-19, of which 311 people in Lahad Datu and 2,396 people in Tawau are still pending test results.

Of the 424 people who tested positive, 186 are Malaysians, 154 are Filipinos, and 84 are Indonesians.

As for Kedah, no new cases have been detected, but testing is still ongoing in areas that are under targeted administrative movement control order that was enacted to curb the spread of the Sungai, Telaga, and Tawar clusters there.

Noor Hisham said there are an estimated 15,000 people to be tested in Kota Setar district, of which 12,885 have already been tested. Of these, 1,128 tests are still pending.

In Amanjaya, 13,591 people have been tested so far.

Noor Hisham said laboratories nationwide have the capacity to run 39,454 RT-PCR tests for Covid-19 daily, and 10,224 tests (26 percent of capacity) were conducted yesterday.

As for imported cases, the 10 cases originate from the Philippines (four cases), Hungary (one case), Turkey (one case), Qatar (one case), Bangladesh (one case), Nigeria (one case), and Morocco (one case).

Six people have recovered from Covid-19 today. The total number of cases in Malaysia so far is 9,969, with 632 cases still active.

The death toll remains unchanged at 128 cases, but the number of people admitted to intensive care units continues to climb.

There are now 14 people being treated in intensive care units, compared to 11 yesterday.

Four of them also require ventilator support, compared to five yesterday.