The number of admissions of COVID-19 patients to health facilities per 100,000 residents increased by 3.4 per cent in the seventh Epidemiological Week 2023 (ME 7/2023) from Feb 12-18 compared to ME 6/2023, said Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
He said the admission of COVID-19 patients to public hospitals per 100,000 population in ME 7/2023 compared to ME 6/2023 recorded no change, which remained at 0.4 per cent for categories one and two while categories three, four and five patients decreased by 20 per cent.
“The percentage of COVID-19 facility bed occupancy in ME 7/2023 compared to ME 6/2023 in non-critical beds decreased by 1.0 per cent, Intensive Care Unit (ICU) bed occupancy remained unchanged at 2.0 per cent and there was no change in COVID-19 patients requiring ventilators, remaining at 0.2 per cent,” he said in a statement today.
Dr Noor Hisham said positive cases of COVID-19 monitored by the COVID-19 Assessment Centre (CAC) across the country showed a decrease and a comparison of physical CAC data reported in ME 7/2023 compared to ME 6/2023 showed patient arrivals to CAC increased by 9.6 per cent.
“The number of new COVID-19 cases requiring monitoring at home decreased by 13.2 per cent and there was a decrease in COVID-19 cases referred by CAC by 39.1 per cent,” he said.
He said between ME 6/2023 and ME 7/2023, new cases decreased by 3.0 per cent (1,542 to 1,495 cases), recovery cases were down by 13.9 per cent (2,071 to 1,784 cases). and deaths down by 50 per cent (eight to four cases).
According to Dr Noor Hisham, from Jan 25 2020 (ME 4/2020) to Feb 18 2023 (ME 7/2023), the cumulative number of new cases is 5,040,821 cases while the cumulative recovery cases are 4,994,944 cases.
“The average of active cases is 8,980, cumulative death cases 36,955 and cumulative cluster 7,171 with four active clusters,” he said.
He said the surveillance of influenza-like-illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) for COVID-19 at sentinel locations (to discover outbreaks) across the country found 25 ILI samples tested positive for COVID-19 at a rate of 3.0 per cent in ME 7/2023 and no SARI samples found positive in ME 7/2023.