CORONAVIRUS | The Health Ministry today reported 94 new Covid-19 cases, the highest in 12 days due to a spike in imported cases.

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said local transmission only amounted to 22 cases while the remaining 72 cases are Malaysians returning from abroad, all from Indonesia.

"Of the 94 new cases, 72 are imported cases involving Malaysians students returning from Indonesia," he said.

This brings the total number of cases to 5,945, he told the ministry's daily briefing in Putrajaya today.

Since April 3, the government had made it mandatory for all Malaysians returning from abroad to isolate themselves at designated quarantine stations.

This was after anticipating that the next Covid-19 threat will come from abroad as the virus is now in more than 180 countries.

Since the compulsory quarantine measure, 226 Malaysians returning from abroad have been tested positive with Covid-19.

Noor Hisham also said no new death was reported today. The death toll remains at 100.

He also reported that another 55 Covid-19 patients have recovered, bringing the total recoveries to 4,087 or 68.7 percent of total cases.

Noor Hisham said 1,758 patients are still under treatment and of this, 40 are in the intensive care unit (ICU), up from 36 yesterday.

And of the Covid-19 patients who are in ICU, 18 need ventilators to breathe, up from 17 yesterday.

Surveillance finds reduction in Covid-19 cases

Noor Hisham said the Health Ministry continues to conduct surveillance action to detect any Covid-19 infections within the community.

This is done by testing all patients with Influenza-like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) for Covid-19, even if they are not known to have been exposed to the virus.

He said since the start of the surveillance activity, the number of SARI patients who turned out to be positive with Covid-19 have fallen dramatically.

Noor Hisham added that during the 17th epidemiology week of surveillance (April 25), only three (0.14 percent) out of 2,168 samples were found to be positive with Covid-19.

"This was in comparison with the 12th epidemiology week (March 28) when 33 (11.15 percent) from 263 samples of SARI cases were found to be positive," he said.

Noor Hisham reiterated his advice to Malaysians to comply with the movement control order (MCO).

He also urged them to practice good hygiene and social distancing.

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