Private Covid-19 admissions up slightly last week: Health DG

 

The number of admissions of Covid-19 patients to health facilities per 100,000 residents increased by 3.4 percent in the seventh Epidemiological Week 2023 (ME 7/2023) from Feb 12-18 compared to ME 6/2023, said Health director-general 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 percent for categories one and two while categories three, four, and five patients decreased by 20 percent.

“The percentage of Covid-19 facility bed occupancy in ME 7/2023 compared to ME 6/2023 in non-critical beds decreased by 1 percent, intensive care unit (ICU) bed occupancy remained unchanged at 2 percent and there was no change in Covid-19 patients requiring ventilators, remaining at 0.2 percent,” he said in a statement today.

Noor Hisham said positive cases 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 percent.

“The number of new Covid-19 cases requiring monitoring at home decreased by 13.2 percent and there was a decrease in Covid-19 cases referred by CAC by 39.1 percent,” he said.

He said between ME 6/2023 and ME 7/2023, new cases decreased by 3 percent (1,542 to 1,495 cases), recovery cases were down by 13.9 percent (2,071 to 1,784 cases), and deaths down by 50 percent (eight to four cases).

According to 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 percent in ME 7/2023 and no SARI samples found positive in ME 7/2023.

- Bernama