Sabah Covid-19 cases continue to rise as seventh cluster detected

COVID-19 | Malaysia has recorded 82 new cases of Covid-19 in 24 hours up to noon today, including yet another new cluster in Semporna, Sabah.

Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said of the 82 cases reported today, 72 cases are locally transmitted while the other 10 cases are imported.

Sixty of the local cases are reported in Sabah, including the new Bangau cluster, which is the seventh cluster reported in the state since Sept 1 when the Benteng LD cluster was first detected and the state began reported a surge in Covid-19 cases.

In other states, 10 cases were reported in Kedah, while Selangor and Sarawak reported one case each.

Noor Hisham said the Bangau cluster was detected during pre-admission screening at the Semporna Hospital, which turned up five Covid-19 cases (Case 10340 to 10344) yesterday.

“All of them did not show symptoms and have been admitted to Semporna Hospital for treatment,” he told a press conference in Putrajaya today.

Active case detection is underway and 92 other people have been tested, and all of them are still waiting for results.

Meanwhile, for the other Sabah clusters, the Benteng LD cluster is still the fastest-growing cluster with 41 new cases being reported, 38 of whom are detainees at Tawau prison.

Noor Hisham said 10,045 people have been screen so far in this cluster, of whom 624 have tested positive and 2,822 are still pending results.

As for the Pulau cluster, six new cases have been reported, including two military personnel in Pulau Denawan, which is a small island about 33km away from downtown Semporna.

There are 595 people tested in this cluster so far, of whom 35 tested positive and 307 are still pending results.

The Selamat cluster has also reported six new cases, bringing the total to 25 cases so far. There are 246 people who have been tested in this cluster, of whom 196 are still pending results.

Meanwhile, one Covid-19 case was detected during community screening in Sabah, and another was detected when a patient was referred to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kota Kinabalu, for testing.

In Kedah, nine of the 10 cases reported today are part of the Sungai cluster. So far, 24,744 people have been tested in the cluster, of whom 83 have tested positive and 270 are still pending results.

One other case in Kedah was detected during screening in Kota Setar that is under the targeted administrative movement control order.

Meanwhile, in Selangor, one case was detected during pre-surgery screening at a healthcare facility and has since been admitted to Sungai Buloh hospital for treatment.

In Sarawak, one case was detected during screening for symptomatic patients at the Sarawak General Hospital, Kuching.

For the imported cases, Noor Hisham said nine cases had originated from India, and one from Indonesia.

There are 168 Covid-19 patients who have recovered and have been discharged today, which is the highest since June 16 when 333 patients were discharged.

Under the Health Ministry’s treatment guidelines, Covid-19 patients can be discharged from infectious disease wards after 14 days since they first test positive if they do not develop symptoms.

For those who develop symptoms, they may be discharged if they have recovered from fever and their respiratory symptoms have improved for at least three days, and at least 14 days have passed since they first developed symptoms.

After this period of time, Covid-19 patients are deemed no longer infectious even if they may still test positive for the disease.

Meanwhile, there are 665 still active Covid-19 cases in Malaysia, of whom nine are being treated in intensive care units. Two of them also require ventilator support.

As for testing, Noor Hisham said 59 laboratories nationwide have the capacity to conduct 39,854 reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests per day as of yesterday, when 12,328 tests (30.93 percent of testing capacity) were successfully conducted.

He said 134,965 pre-surgery tests have been conducted so far, of which only 72 (0.05 percent) tested positive.

In addition, 216,331 tests have been administered using antigen rapid test kits (RTK-Ag) up to yesterday, of which 602 (0.28 percent) were positive.