THE government will begin screening senior citizens for Covid-19 at all nursing homes as they are the most vulnerable group, said the Health Ministry.

The exercise will be done in phases, beginning with 17 nursing homes registered under the Welfare Department.

“After that, we will screen all 357 nursing homes registered with the government,” Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah told the daily Covid-19 briefing in Putrajaya today.

He said there were also more than 1,000 unregistered private nursing homes in the country.

“As such, the district health offices have been instructed to identify such nursing homes in their areas.

“We hope that the private nursing homes will also contact the nearest health offices for the screening,” he said.

Earlier, Noor Hisham told reporters that 32, or 32.2%, of those who died of the novel coronavirus in Malaysia were in the 61-70 age group, while another 19 (19.2%) were aged 71-80.

The figures are from the ministry’s mortality review of 99 of the 105 fatalities in the country to the virus so far.

Noor Hisham said that 70 of the 105 Covid-19 fatalities were aged above 60.

He said there were two more fatalities in the past 24 hours, one aged 82 and the other 64.

Both male patients had a history of high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney disease and heart conditions.

Malaysia today recorded 122 new infections, bringing the total number of Covid-19 cases in the country to 6,298.

This is the second day of a return to triple-digit cases after 105 new cases were reported yesterday, following 15 days of double-digits. – May 3, 2020.