KUALA LUMPUR, April 13 — Malaysia has 134 new Covid-19 cases, which brings its total to 4,817, Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said today.

Dr Noor Hisham said there have also been 168 recoveries in the last 24 hours, surpassing the 166 recoveries detected yesterday as well as the number of positive cases reported as of today.

The latest data also included one new death, raising the total number of Covid-19 fatalities from the outbreak to 77 or 1.6 per cent of the total case detected as of today.

"Up to now 66 Covid-19 positive cases are being treated in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). From that amount, 36 cases require assistance breathing,” he said in the ministry’s daily Covid-19 press briefing.

Today’s recoveries gave Malaysia a total of 2,276 patients who have beaten Covid-19 or a recovery rate of 47.23 per cent of all cases.

There are 2,464 active cases remaining, with all of them currently isolated and provided treatment.

On today’s sole Covid-19 fatality, Dr Noor Hisham said the deceased was a 62-year-old man (Case-2797) who was a participant of the tabligh gathering at the Sri Petaling Mosque.

"He was treated at Hospital Melaka on March 31 and was pronounced dead at 9.15am today. The deceased has a history of heart disease, high blood pressure and kidney complications,” he added.

Responding to a question, Dr Noor Hisham also said Covid-19 was not similar to human immunodeficiency viruses—also known as HIV—which has been identified as a novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus.

"Not the same. Firstly, the virus that has been identified is a coronavirus whereby there are seven strains of human coronaviruses. Some of the varieties can cause severe acute respiratory syndrome as we know.

"And there are two stages to the infection, first is infectivity and the second is inflammation. We try to avoid this infection which is caused by droplets entering into a person’s lung which the virus activates before replicating and triggering an inflammatory reaction in the body. 

"This inflammation is the one that is lethal. That is the first difference between HIV,” he said.