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PUTRAJAYA: Health authorities are stepping up their efforts to detect Covid-19 cases and are preparing for an uptrend in the number of positive cases in the coming days, says Tan Sri Dr. Noor Hisham Abdullah.
The Director General of Health said this after a record number of Covid-19 cases on two consecutive days in Malaysia yesterday, with 317 new infections, the highest daily increase so far (it was 287 cases on Friday).
“Four districts of Sabah, namely Lahad Datu, Tawau, Kunak and Semporna, are under the order of targeted enhanced movement control with aggressive evaluation underway.
“As our field activities are focused on those areas, we expect to see an increase in cases in the coming days.
“The expected increase in cases is also due to the additional assessments for national and international returnees to Sabah.
“This will allow us to track the positive cases and isolate them, before performing the detection of acute cases in these cases,” he said yesterday here.
In Sabah, there was one death involving a 57-year-old man with a history of diabetes, high blood pressure and dyslipidemia, bringing our death toll to 137, he said.
Sabah contributed the most cases with 155, followed by Kedah (102), Selangor (32), Terengganu (nine), four in Kuala Lumpur and Johor, three in Sarawak and Penang, two in Kelantan and Putrajaya, and one in Negri Sembilan.
Dr. Noor Hisham said that as of September 27, a total of 14,747 people who returned to Sabah had been tested and 176 (1.19%) tested positive.
He noted that efforts to curb the pandemic were now focused on Sabah, as the ministry had so far mobilized healthcare teams from the peninsula to strengthen its team and delivery of services there.
“We have sent teams not only from Sarawak and Labuan, but also from Terengganu, Kelantan, Pahang and Kuala Lumpur to Sabah.
“We have enough medical equipment and personnel to handle the situation, along with the cooperation of various departments and agencies.
“We hope to control the spread of the virus in the next two weeks,” he said, adding that the infection at Kedah prison was also under control as all prisoners and guards had been tested.
He noted that Sabah had six hospitals along with six quarantine and low-risk treatment centers with 590 beds and 1,396 beds respectively.
“As of Friday, the government hospital use rate is 69%, while low-risk treatment centers are 31%,” he said, adding that the 66-bed Intensive Care Unit (ICU) it now has a 23% usage rate.
Meanwhile, Dr. Noor Hisham noted that the latest death involved a patient who was delayed in seeking treatment at Tawau Hospital.
Three new clusters were also reported, two in Kedah and one in Selangor.
“The Bah Lunas conglomerate has been identified in Kulim and the index case is a 35-year-old local man who had just returned from a high-risk area in Sabah.
“So far, 112 people have been tested and four have tested positive and 87 are awaiting their results,” he said.
The index case for the Bah Rose group in Kuala Muda, Kedah, was another 48-year-old Malaysian man who had traveled to Sabah.
Contact tracing on it has led to seven more people testing positive in the group.
So far, seven people in Kedah and one in Penang have tested positive in the group.
“The Jelok group has been identified in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, so the index case was a 27-year-old Malaysian man who tested positive on Thursday.
“So far, four people have tested positive in the group,” he said, adding that the source of the infections was still under investigation.
Dr. Noor Hisham noted that 121 patients recovered yesterday, bringing the total recoveries to 10,216 or a rate of 84.5%.
The total number of active cases in the country is now 1,735.
The total number of cases accumulated in the country since the outbreak began in January is 12,088.
There are 29 patients under treatment in the ICU, four of whom require ventilation.
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