Thirty-eight out of 41 new positive COVID-19 cases reported today were due to local transmission, said Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

He said from the 38 local transmission cases, 32 involved foreigners while six cases were among locals.

“This brings the cumulative positive cases to 8,494,” he told a media conference on COVID-19 development here today.

On the infection cases in the country involving non-citizens, Dr Noor Hisham said 31 cases were detected in Negeri Sembilan with 14 cases at the Immigration Academy of Malaysia in Port Dickson involving detainees transferred to the academy from the Immigration Detention Depot in Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur.

“There were 15 cases in the Pedas cluster and two cases in the cleaning company cluster,” he said and added that another case was detected in the federal capital through workplace screening by the employer.

On the spread of COVID-19 among locals, he said two cases were detected in Selangor with one acute respiratory infection (ARI) case in an old folks home in Kuala Selangor found in Tanjung Karang Hospital and one close contact case of COVID-19 victim number 8,294.

“There were two cases in Melaka with one close contact case (case number 7,817) and one case of school or tahfiz screening. There was one case each from Negeri Sembilan tahfiz screening and in Sabah relating the close contact of 119th death victim (case no. 8,403),” he said.

Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham said three of the 41 new cases were reported to be import cases of Malaysians infected from abroad.

He also said there were no COVID-19 deaths recorded and fatality toll stays at 121 cases which is 1.42 per cent from the overall caases.

There were 54 cases of recovery and cumulative total of discharged cases was 7,400 which is 87.1 per cent.

"As such, the total active cases with COVID-19 infectivity is 973 cases and they are isolated and treated.

“To date, there are four positive cases being treated at the intensive care unit (ICU) and there were no cases requiring respiratory assistance,” he added.

-- BERNAMA