Malaysia announces 170 new COVID-19 cases and one more death

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia announced 170 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday (Apr 7), bringing the total number in the country to 3,963. 

One more death was announced – a 71-year-old man from Perlis. He had attended a mass religious gathering in Sulawesi, Indonesia from Mar 17 to 24. 

A total of 63 people have now died of COVID-19 in Malaysia. 

In a press conference, Health Director General Noor Hisham Abdullah said 80 more patients have been discharged from hospital, bringing the total number of full recoveries to 1,321.

“There are 92 patients being treated in the intensive care unit. Fifty of them require the ventilator,” he added.

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SPORADIC CASES

Dr Noor Hisham also said that there are 69 sporadic cases, with authorities unable to trace the source of their infection to anyone or any clusters.

He added that 30 healthcare workers were infected on duty. 

“Some of them were working in the ICU where they were treating a patient for severe acute respiratory infections, not knowing that they (patients) were positive for COVID-19,” he told reporters.

“They get infected because they are not wearing Personal Protective Equipment.”

He explained that of the 30 healthcare workers who tested positive, 12 were infected from treating people with Severe Acute Respiratory Infections, while the others were infected at clinics. 

Dr Noor Hisham stressed that moving forward, all cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Infections will be treated as COVID-19 unless proven otherwise, to protect healthcare workers.