KUALA LUMPUR, June 11 — Malaysia will declare that it is free from the Covid-19 pandemic once it registers zero cases of infection for 28 days straight, Health Ministry director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said today.

In his daily Covid-19 press briefing, Dr Noor Hisham said that this is based on the two 14-day-cycles they use to monitor for the virus’ presence in an individual who is being quarantined.

"If we look at what we have done before we end a Covid-19 cluster, we monitor it for 28 days. Which is two cycles of incubation. So, if we utilise the same method, if we have achieved zero cases for 28 consecutive days, then we will announce ourselves free of Covid-19.

"That is our benchmark,” said Dr Noor Hisham.

Malaysia today recorded 31 new Covid-19 cases, bringing the total figure to 8,369 cases.

The latest double-digit figure is a rise, following single-digit infections in the last three days.

However, Dr Noor Hisham said the National Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (CPRC) did not record any deaths yesterday, maintaining the tally at 118 deaths.

From the 31 new cases, he said 11 were imported cases involving returning Malaysians who were infected overseas.

"Out of the 20 local transmission cases, only one involved a Malaysian. The case was detected during a health screening at a tahfiz school in Selangor.

"There were also 19 new cases of foreigners where 16 were from the Pedas cluster in Negri Sembilan, one from the Sungai Lui tahfiz cluster, one from the Kuala Lumpur-based cleaning company and one from the Kuala Lumpur construction site,” said Dr Noor Hisham.