PUTRAJAYA, April 18 — Malaysia’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic continues to show positive results with recoveries on the uptrend and newly reported cases dropping.
Fifty-four new cases were reported today, the lowest number yet since the Movement Control Order (MCO) came into force.
There were also 135 recoveries today, which is more than double of new cases overnight.
Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said with the 135 recoveries, the total number of those fully recovered and discharged were 2,967 cases or 56.5 percent of cumulative cases.
“The 54 new cases bring the tally to 5,305 cases with 2,115 infectivity cases. They have been isolated and given treatment,” he said in the daily COVID-19 media conference at the Health Ministry (MOH) here today.
However, Dr Noor Hisham said there were also two fatalities reported today, raising the number to 88 deaths or 1.66 percent of total fatalities.
He said the 87th fatality (case 2,657) is a Malaysian man, aged 60, who had a history of high blood pressure and diabetes.
“He was treated at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital on March 30 and died on April 12 at 3.20 pm.
As for the 88th death (case 5,252), it involved a 36-year-old Myanmar man who was treated at the Selayang hospital yesterday after coming in late for treatment for Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) and died on the same day at 10 am,” he said.