Treated patients who choose not to go home will be placed in other centres

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah says some Covid-19 patients still tested positive even after being treated for two months.

PUTRAJAYA: The health ministry said those who do not wish to return home after testing positive for Covid-19 even after undergoing treatment for 14 days will be placed at centres treating those with mild symptoms.

“If they do not wish to return home, we won’t place them at hospitals, but maybe training institutes or ones that treat asymptomatic patients or those displaying mild symptoms,” he told reporters during his daily briefing this evening.

He said this when asked if patients could opt to remain in hospital after the 14-day period.

Yesterday, Noor Hisham said Covid-19 patients who test positive even after the 14-day treatment period will be discharged as they would not be able to infect others.

This follows a report released by the World Health Organization (WHO) in which it was stated that infectivity was zero after the 14-day period.

Previously, patients would be discharged if they tested negative on the 13th day, while those who tested positive would continue to be treated in hospital.

This evening, Noor Hisham revealed that some still tested positive even after being treated for two months.

“But those are residual cases,” he said, adding that it also meant that such patients could not infect others.

Noor Hisham went on to say that 80% of the Covid-19 patients in the country were “Category 1” or “Category 2” cases, who were either asymptomatic or displayed mild symptoms.

This meant they would not need to be hospitalised, unlike those placed under “Category 3” and above.

Meanwhile, Noor Hisham said Auditor-General Nik Azman Nik Abdul Majid — who had last week confirmed that he was tested positive for Covid-19 — was responding well to treatment.

Nik Azman, he said, is being taken care of and has been isolated.

“He is responding very well, asymptomatic but positive (for the virus). We are monitoring closely,” he said, adding that symptoms Nik Azman displayed were “very vague”, with no fever, cough or a runny nose.

“He is doing very well.”

News of the infection, but not the identity of the infected official, broke out last week with the announcement that Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin was in quarantine after coming into contact with a high-level official during a post-Cabinet meeting. However, the PM’s office said Muhyiddin had tested negative for Covid-19.

The audit department said staff were informed about the infected individual in an internal circular that went viral the following day. - FMT