CORONAVIRUS | All seven new Covid-19 cases today could be traced back to Patient 26, according to the Health Ministry.
Patient 26, who is a senior member of the Khazanah Nasional Berhad and UDA Holdings Berhad, had also come in close contact with a former minister and former deputy minister but both were tested negative yesterday.
"The Health Ministry would like to refer to the prime minister's statement today about seven new cases.
"These cases are close contact members of Case 26," said Health Ministry director-general Noor Hisham Abdullah.
The seven close contacts of Patient 26 who subsequently tested positive for Covid-19 are as follows:
Patient 30
Case 30 is a 38-year-old Malaysian man. He had a travel history to Australia on Feb 12 and returned on Feb 16. He previously did not show any symptoms.
This case was detected via contact tracing and was confirmed positive with Covid-19 on March 2.
Patient 31
Case 31 is a 50-year-old Malaysian man. The case did not have a recent travel history. The patient reported symptoms on Feb 26.
The case was detected via contact tracing and was confirmed positive with Covid-19 on March 2.
Patient 32
Case 32 is a 43-year-old Malaysian woman. The case did not have a recent travel history. The patient reported symptoms on Feb 27.
The case was detected via contact tracing and was confirmed positive with Covid-19 on March 2.
Patient 33
Case 33 is a 58-year-old Malaysian man. The case has a travel history to Kuching, Sarawak to attend a meeting on Feb 16.
The case was detected via contact tracing and was confirmed positive with Covid-19 on March 2.
Patient 34
Case 34 is a 40-year-old Malaysian man. He is a paramedic at a hospital and had given treatment to Patient 26. The patient did not have a recent history of overseas travel
The case was detected via contact tracing and was confirmed positive with Covid-19 on March 3.
Patient 35
Case 35 is a 50-year-old Malaysian woman. The patient had travelled to Australia on Jan 31 and returned to Malaysia on Feb 16.
The case was detected via contact tracing and was confirmed positive with Covid-19 on March 3.
Patient 36
Case 36 is a 49-year-old Malaysian man. The patient travelled to Egypt on Jan 23 and had returned to Malaysia on Feb 1.
The case did not show any symptoms. He was detected via contact tracing and was confirmed positive with Covid-19 on March 3.
No immediate danger
All patients, except Patient 32, have been admitted to the Sungai Buloh hospital and are in stable condition.
Patient 32 was admitted to Kuala Lumpur Hospital and is also in stable condition.
The Health Ministry said it is still tracing more close contacts of Patient 26, as well as those of the new patients.
To recap, Patient 26, who is a 52-year-old man, had travelled to Shanghai, China in the middle of January this year.
He had sought outpatient treatment at a private hospital on Feb 27 after coming down with fever and sore throat.
He was tested positive for Covid-19 on Feb 29.
Global reach
The seven new Covid-19 infections bring the total tally in Malaysia to 36 cases.
To date, 92,153 have been infected worldwide with 3,127 deaths.
The bulk of the cases are in China (80,151 cases) where the virus first broke out, but it has now spread to other parts of the world.
Some countries are struggling to contain the virus and have seen an exponential increase in cases including South Korea (5,186 cases), Iran (2,336 cases) and Italy (2,036 cases).
