PUTRAJAYA — A total of 36 new COVID-19 positive cases were reported as at noon today, with 28 of them involving non-Malaysian citizens, said Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
He said this brings to 6,855 the total of COVID-19 positive cases in the country, while the number of infectivity cases is 1,304.
There were 88 recoveries today, bringing the total number of those who have fully recovered and discharged to 5,439 cases or 79.3 per cent of the cumulative COVID-19 cases, he told a daily media conference on COVID-19 today.
Dr Noor Hisham said the cumulative number of death due to COVID-19 in the country remained at 112, with no death reported today.
He said the Health Ministry had conducted purification of the data on COVID-19 and with the cooperation of various agencies, such as the National Security Council and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, had developed a database system known as ‘eCOVID’ .
He said the eCOVID system ensures more effective, fast and accurate data collection from the field.
“Apart from that, standardisation of laboratory data systems from all COVID-19 laboratories (namely the Health Ministry laboratories, universities, MOSTi, army hospitals and also private laboratories) has been enhanced using the Public Health Laboratory Information System (SIMKA).
“The system was developed by the National Public Health Laboratory (MKAK) and has been used by all COVID-19 laboratories mid-April 2020,” he added.
Dr Noor Hisham said it was a good achievement compared to previously where data from the field and laboratories was reported manually.
He said as of yesterday, 297,342 individuals had undergone the COVID-19 swab test and 6,819 of them or 2.29 per cent, were screened positive.
“However, with the use of this improved data collection system, the Health Ministry would like to inform that as at noon of May 15, 2020, it has screened 424,306 individuals, where 6,855 of them are COVID-19 positive and 417,451 others are negative.
“This makes the positive rate at 1.62 per cent, while, the ratio of people who were screened is 13 per 1,000 population,” he added.
This, he said, showed that Malaysia was among ASEAN countries which performed the most number of COVID-19 screening tests.
— BERNAMA
