PUTRAJAYA, Oct 22 (NNN-BERNAMA) — The number of new COVID-19 cases in the country has jumped to 847 cases after recording a fall yesterday while deaths rose to five. There were also 486 cases of recovery.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said with the development in the past 24 hours, the cumulative positive COVID-19 cases in Malaysia now stood at 23,804 with 8,183 active cases.
According to him, from the 847 new cases, five imported cases were reported in Selangor, all of them involving non-Malaysians coming from India (four cases) and United States (one case).
“Today, Sabah still has the highest new cases with 578 (68 per cent). This is the dedicated effort of health personnel in Sabah mobilised from peninsula and other parts of the state to continue conducting screening in the field.
“In other states in the Klang Valley, there was an increase of 164 cases (19.4 per cent ). From 164 new cases, 71 cases were from existing and new clusters,” he told a media conference on the development COVID-19 at the Health Ministry (MOH) today.
Commenting further, Dr Noor Hisham said on the overall, 13 cases recorded today were from Remand Prison cluster, Tembok cluster and screenings at Taiping and Tapah Prisons who were isolated and did not infect the community.
He said 11 cases were visitors who returned from Sabah, bringing the cases with history of travelling to Sabah since Sept 20 to 465 cases.
Giving details on cases in other states, he said Selangor reported 132 cases, Negeri Sembilan (38), Federal Territories of Labuan (29), Kuala Lumpur (23), Perak (14), Penang (10), Putrajaya (four), Kedah, Melaka and Kelantan three each, Pahang (two) while Terengganu, Johor and Sarawak recorded one each.
“To date, there are 90 positive COVID-19 cases being treated at Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in which 29 cases require respiratory assistance,” he said.
On fatalities, he said four cases were recorded in Sabah involving three Malaysians and a foreigner while one case involved a Malaysian in Kedah.
Dr Noor Hisham said in Kedah, death case 200th was a 67-year-old woman in Sultanah Bahiyah Hospital who had underlying health issues such as diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidemia.
He said in Sabah, death case number 201st was a woman, 65, at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Kota Kinabalu who had no background disease; death number 202nd was an 88-year-old man at the Duches of Kent Hospital, Sandakan who was without underlying diseases and death case number 203rd was a man, 78, at Tuaran Hospital who had a stroke.
“Another case at the Duchess of Kent Hospital, Sandakan was death number 204th involving a non-citizen woman, 60, who had no diseases.
“With the five additional fatalities, the cumulative COVID-19 death cases in Malaysia is 204 cases,” he said.
— NNN-BERNAMA
