According to the ministry, three of the four cases traced to have had contact with recent travellers from mainland China had prolonged interactions with these travellers. Bernama Photo
SINGAPORE: Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH) today confirmed six additional cases of coronavirus infection in the city-state, with four of the cases involving local human-to-human transmission.
With these additional cases, it brings the count to 24.
Three of the local transmission cases, all involving Singapore residents, can be traced to contact with recent travellers from mainland China while the fourth, an Indonesian’s domestic worker, is a close contact of one of the local transmission cases, it said in its latest update.
The ministry added that the remaining two were from among the group of Singaporeans who were evacuated from Wuhan on Jan 30.
“Though four of these cases constitute a local transmission cluster, there is as yet no evidence of widespread sustained community transmission in Singapore,” the ministry said.
According to the ministry, three of the four cases traced to have had contact with recent travellers from mainland China had prolonged interactions with these travellers.
“Pending confirmation from the Chinese authorities, the travellers are from Guangxi, and at least two of them have since been confirmed with coronavirus infection,” it said.
The ministry also revealed that the first Malaysian who has tested positive for coronavirus was in Singapore from Jan 16-23 for a business meeting at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, which involved Chinese nationals.
Updating on one of the earlier confirmed cases, the ministry said that a 35-year-old male Wuhan resident, had been discharged from the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) today.
He has recovered, and has been comprehensively tested negative for the virus, it said.
Earlier, in KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia’s Minister of Health Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad at his daily press conference to update on the coronavirus situation in Malaysia had revealed that a 41-year-old man, who had travelled to Singapore for the business meeting, is the first Malaysian who has tested positive for the novel coronavirus 2019 (2019-nCoV).
He was one of two new positive cases, bringing to 10 the number of coronavirus cases in Malaysia so far.
The other case involved a 63-year-old man from China who arrived at the KL International Airport on Jan 18.
The minister said both of them were receiving treatment and were in stable condition.
The novel coronavirus which broke out in Wuhan has since spread to at least 27 countries around the globe. Up to 427 people have died and more than 20,000 confirmed cases have been reported as of today.
Two of the deaths occurred outside China, one in the Philippines and the other in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. – Bernama