CORONAVIRUS | Malaysia today recorded nine new Covid-19 infections, the bulk of which were imported cases.

Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the nine new cases comprised seven imported and two local transmissions.

This is the lowest number of local transmissions in more than two weeks.

The improvement follows the government's decision to tighten measures against Covid-19, including abandoning home quarantine and reimposing isolation at designated quarantine centres beginning July 24.

Malaysia had seen double-digits in new local transmissions in four of the last 10 days, some of which were due to home quarantine violations by overseas returnees.

Noor Hisham said the two new local transmissions today involved a Malaysian who was a Person Under Investigation (PUI) from the Sivagangga cluster in Kedah as well as a non-citizen in Selangor who was traced back to the Bukit Tiram cluster in Johor.

The Sivagangga cluster started from a returnee who violated home quarantine while the Bukit Tiram cluster started at a clergy centre in Johor.

Giving an update on the Bukit Tiram cluster, Noor Hisham said 135 people have been screened to date and 10 were found positive with Covid-19. Another 124 tested negative and one result was pending.

The close contacts were determined to be from Johor, Malacca, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, and Terengganu. However, the positive cases so far were only in Johor (9) and Selangor (1).

"From the 10 positive cases, four are non-citizens. The positive case reported today (Case 8,977) is a close contact of Case 8,893 from Johor.

Following investigations and active case detection by the district health department, Case 8,893 was found to have stayed at Case 8,977's home from July 16 to July 19 in Selangor.

"Therefore, he (the host) was identified and given a home quarantine order.

"A second Covid-19 screening was administered on Case 8,977 after experiencing cough and sore throat. He was found to be positive and is now being treated at Sungai Buloh Hospital," Noor Hisham said.

As for the new imported cases, he said they involved five Malaysians and two non-citizens returning from India (2), United Arab Emirates (1), Japan (1), Switzerland (1), the Phillippines (1), and Pakistan (1).

The new infections put the cumulative cases at 8,985, of which 8,647 have recovered.

Of the 213 Covid-19 patients still under treatment, two are in the intensive care unit of which one needs a ventilator to breathe.

No new death was reported, maintaining the death toll at 125.