THE rise in sporadic infections since the start of the year is worrying, said director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, adding that the Klang Valley reported the bulk of this type of infections.

According to Noor Hisham, from January 1 to June 19, Malaysia recorded a total of 578,105 Covid-19 cases with 69%, or 398,846 cases, identified as sporadic infections.

“Of this, Selangor reported 151,725 infections (38%), followed by Kuala Lumpur with 44,517 cases (11.2%) and Sarawak with 40,889 cases (10.3%).

“During the 24th epidemiology week of the year (June 13 to June 19), the Klang Valley recorded the highest number of sporadic cases in Malaysia.

“The top three districts are Petaling with 3,905 cases, Hulu Langat with 2,783 cases and Klang with 2,482 cases,” he said in a statement today.

Sporadic infections are cases that are detected within a community but are not associated with any existing Covid-19 cluster.

They are detected through screening at workplaces, in the community or screening of symptomatic cases.

Noor Hisham said most of these sporadic cases are asymptomatic but the person can still infect anyone around him or her, if there is little or no compliance with standard operating procedures (SOP).

He said that despite controlling the increase in clusters since the implementation of the movement control order (MCO) 3.0, there has been no drop in the number of sporadic infections.

Malaysia reported 4,611 new infections today, the lowest since mid-May. However, Selangor still topped cases by state for the 60th straight day.

Active cases also continued to decline steadily after the country reported more recoveries than new infections for the past 15 consecutive days. – June 21, 2021.