KUALA LUMPUR: Another new Covid-19 cluster was recorded in Malaysia today, said Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
In a statement, Dr Noor Hisham said the new cluster involved an old folks' home in Kluang, Johor.
From this new cluster, he said 13 cases were recorded involving 12 Malaysians and one Indonesian and they were part of the 21 new Covid-19 cases reported in the country as of noon today.
He said these 13 cases involved 11 residents of the old folks' home, one worker and one family member.
"The first case of the cluster was a fatality, death case 123, reported on July 19. Following the death, the ministry initiated an investigation and active case detection.
"As of noon today, 39 people have been screened with 14 testing positive, 18 were found negative and seven still pending results," he said, adding that preventive measures such as disinfection exercise had been carried out at the old folks' home.
On Sunday, three new Covid-19 clusters were detected comprising the Kuala Lumpur Restaurant cluster, the Sepang Kongsi House cluster and the Kuching Jetty Cluster in Sarawak.
Dr Noor Hisham also said of today's 21 new cases, six were imported cases while the remaining numbers were local transmissions.
These imported cases, he said, involved four Malaysians and two non-Malaysians who were allowed to enter for work purposes.
Three of them returned from the Philippines, and one had flown in from India, one from Russia and one from Denmark.
Dr Noor Hisham said Malaysia had in total 8,800 Covid-19 cases with 122 active cases.
He said of the local transmission cases, 13 were Malaysians and two were foreigners.
"For cases involving Malaysians, 12 are from the Kluang old folks' home cluster and the 13th is a patient who had undergone pre-surgery screening and the said patient has been admitted to the Tuanku Ja'afar Hospital in Seremban for treatment.
"The two non-Malaysian cases reported in Johor involved a pre-surgery screening and another one from the Kluang old folks' home cluster," he said.
Two patients had recovered from the novel coronavirus and discharged today, bringing the total of recoveries to 8,555.
Three were being treated at the intensive care unit with one on ventilator support.
No new fatalities were reported today, keeping the death toll at 123.