KUALA LUMPUR, March 7 — The Ministry of Health has confirmed another 10 new cases of COVID-19 as at noon today, bringing the total number of COVID-19 positive cases in the country to 93.

Health Director-General Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said all of the cases have been detected and isolated for further treatment.

"The close contacts of these cases are being identified for investigations and samplings,” he said in a statement today.

Of the 93 cases, 75 are Malaysians, 15 China nationals and one citizen each of the United States, Japan and Italy.

Of the total, 23 cases have fully recovered and discharged from hospitals while another 70 patients are still undergoing treatment at several hospitals, he said.

Dr Noor Hisham said the reported new cases were close contacts of the case 33 with four cases being the first-generation close contacts while the rest were the second-generation close contacts.

He said all of the cases were detected during contact tracing, and they had been admitted to hospitals for further treatment.

Meanwhile, investigations into the close contacts of the case 26 found that a cluster of COVID-19 infections with a total of 132 close contacts was linked to patient 33.

Of the total, 18 positive patients are being treated at hospitals and in stable condition while 38 have been found negative and are put under 14-day home surveillance, said Dr Noor Hisham.

The remaining 76 close contacts are waiting for laboratory results, however, all of them are reported to be healthy and have been placed under home surveillance, he added.

Dr Noor Hisham also said that the 78th patient, reported yesterday, was the detected from Patient-Under-Investigation (PUI).

"This individual has a travel history to Indonesia for seven days from Feb 13 and the patient began to show symptoms on Feb 19.

"A total of 67 close contacts were detected and samples have been taken. All of these close contacts have been placed under home surveillance,” he said.

Meanwhile, he said the ministry was still conducting investigations and contact tracing activities to identify the source of infections to curb the spread of the disease.

This included detecting sporadic cases and local cases in the country in patients who experienced influenza-like illness and severe acute respiratory infection with no travel history to any countries with contact or affected by positive COVID-19 cases.

"As of today (March 7), a total of 432 samples have been tested and none were positive of COVID-19 infection. Currently, no sporadic cases are detected through surveillance activities,” he said. — Bernama