by BERNAMA/ pic by BERNAMA

THERE were 95 positive COVID-19 cases detected from 12,160 Malaysians undergoing quarantine after returning from overseas so far, said Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

He said from the total, 7,910 individuals had their samples taken since April 3.

Therefore, he said the move to isolate all Malaysians who returned from abroad at quarantine stations under the Movement Control Order  (MCO) was a right move to curb the spread of the outbreak.

“The matter (positive cases of Malaysians returning from abroad) was expected, considering more than 180 countries in the world are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The proactive measure (quarantine) saw a rise in the number of cases reported in the state they are quarantined, for example there was an increase of 37 cases in Melaka, 32 in the federal territories of Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya; three in Sarawak; three in Johor and two in Selangor.

“The positive cases were separated and given treatment at the hospital,” he said at the daily COVID-19 media conference at Health Ministry (MOH) today.

On the monitoring of COVID-19 infection, Dr Noor Hisham said MOH is conducting sampling among patients with symptoms of influenza like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) since Feb 2.

He said so far 56 cases out of 2,669 SARI samples taken were found positive which is 2.1 per cent of the total.