KUALA LUMPUR (June 19): A new Covid-19 cluster has been detected in Sarawak, with a public institute of higher learning student as the index case, the Ministry of Health (MoH) said today.
The Kidurong cluster has six cases now after the student tested positive for the virus last Friday, said Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
Besides the student, the other five who tested positive for Covid-19 were the student's father, mother and two siblings, as well as a friend of the father.
The source of infection is still under investigation, said Noor Hisham.
He said 231 close contacts had been identified by the ministry and 163 had undergone screening.
Noor Hisham said the Seri Petaling tabligh cluster, the country's largest, had 3,372 positive cases up until noon today, from 41,955 that had undergone screening.
Meanwhile, 722 positive cases were detected among tahfiz schools, and 363 among healthcare workers.
Elsewhere, there were 598 cases among Malaysians who had returned from abroad, 275 cases among market workers (275) and 154 among foreign workers at construction sites and security sectors in red zones.
Noor Hisham also announced that 19,309 samples of patients with influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) had been taken up until noon today.
Of the 2,048 samples of ILI patients, 15 tested negative. As for SARI patients, 76 of the 17,261 samples tested positive.
Besides these, 17 positive cases were detected through pre-surgery emergency cases and partial emergencies in MoH facilities, from 37,756 people who had undergone screening.
Malaysia reported six new cases of Covid-19 today, taking the total so far to 8,535.