CORONAVIRUS | Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has confirmed that a few medical personnel from Teluk Intan Hospital in Perak have tested positive for Covid-19.

"The hospital is aware of allegations spread in social media, such as Facebook and WhatsApp, lately purported an increase of Covid cases among the doctors to the extent that it has disrupted the daily operation of the hospital.

"It was informed that several medical personnel tested positive for Covid. However, the safety and prevention measures have been taken immediately," Noor Hisham (photo, above) said in a Facebook posting earlier today.

"The management of the hospital, with the assistance from the Hilir Perak Health District, has taken action to closely monitor (the situation)," he said.

The management has been focusing on minimising the exposure of the medical staff since the first case had been identified.

Noor Hisham reminded the people not to spread any unverified allegation as this may incite the anger of the general public.

His statement is believed to be referring to an unverified post being shared online alleging medical staff from the hospital had tested positive for Covid-19.

The post had taken hospital management to task for allegedly not conducting health screenings after one medical personnel was suspected to have infected other colleagues.

Noor Hisham had previously said a total of 19 Health Ministry staff and five employees at private medical facilities in the country have been infected with the virus.

However, he said that the infection of the medical personnel was not due to their non-compliance in handling the Covid-19 patients.

"Investigations showed that the patients were close contacts of the first and second generations from the tabligh cluster," Noor Hisham said.

Yesterday, a 48-year-old medical doctor became the country's ninth fatality due to the Covid-19 outbreak, and the first medical personnel to die from the disease.

Even so, it was reported the patient had not been a frontline staff handling coronavirus patients. Rather, the case was related to the patient's history of travel abroad.

To date, Malaysia has recorded 1,306 Covid-19 cases, of which there are 10 fatalities and 139 complete recoveries.

Keep up with the latest information on the outbreak in the country with Malaysiakini's free Covid-19 tracker.

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