THE Health Ministry has identified three new Covid-19 clusters, said director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

The new clusters are in Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur, which involves mostly foreigners, the Hulu Langat Condominium cluster, which started with a tahfiz student, and a construction site cluster in Kuching, Sarawak.

The first cluster that was detected in Bukit Bintang involved ten cases – nine Bangladeshi and a Malaysian.

The index case of the cluster was a foreigner who tested positive on June 15 while undergoing pre-employment screening.

Seven of the 10 cases were housemates of the index case.

Noor Hisham said the latest case in the cluster was a 40-year-old woman who lived in Selangor but worked in Bukit Bintang.

“We are investigating whether she is related to the seven cases in the apartment,” he said in his media briefing in Putrajaya today.

A total of 274 people have been screened, whereby 203 were foreigners and 71 were citizens.

Meanwhile, the index case of the Hulu Langat Condominium cluster was a tahfiz student who had tested positive for the coronavirus on June 8.

Active case detection then led to the discovery of two more cases. The first case was a foreigner who was the foster uncle of the index patient.

Although the man had lived separately, he was said to have visited the index patient.

His colleague was also tested positive for Covid-19.

A total of 40 close contacts have been screened, of which 26 were foreigners and 14 were Malaysians. Of this, 30 have been tested negative, and seven are still waiting for their test results.

The third cluster was detected at a construction site in Kuching, Sarawak. The supervisor of the site was the index case of the cluster and was tested positive upon screening at a private clinic.

Two of his Indonesian employees were also tested positive for Covid-19.

Noor Hisham added that no new cases were detected in all other 20 clusters.

Malaysia today recorded six new infections with 45 recoveries. There were no deaths reported today.

The national tally of infection stands at 8,596 while the total number of recoveries is 8,231.

Active cases stand at 244 while fatalities remain at 121. – June 24, 2020.