KUCHING: The country’s Covid-19 death toll has risen to 82 with five deaths recorded today, said Ministry of Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
He said the five fatalities involving four men and one woman all had cases of chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, kidney and heart disease.
He also said one of the deaths involved an unidentified man who was found dead in Pulau Gaya, Sabah on April 6.
“A sample taken during the autopsy which found the man to be positive for Covid-19. This case is still under police investigation,” he said at the daily Covid-19 update press conference which was broadcasted live on the Ministry of Health’s Facebook page.
Dr Noor said Malaysia also recorded 170 new positive Covid-19 cases today bringing the total number of cases in the country to 4,987.
“To date, 60 positive Covid-19 patients are still being treated at intensive care units at hospitals out of which 33 require ventilator support,” he said, adding that 2,427 people are still being treated at hospitals nationwide.
He also said 202 patients have recovered and were discharged today, which brings the total number of those recovered to 2,478.
To a question on why more men in Malaysia had succumbed to Covid-19 compared to women, Dr Noor said one of the factors could be that men had more activities outside compared to women.
“The other factor was that in Malaysia, we found that the highest death cases were from those who attended the Sri Petaling tabligh event.
“From this Sri Petaling gathering, the majority of them who attended were men,” he explained.
Out of the country’s 82 death toll, 63 were men.
Nevertheless, Dr Noor said what is certain is that most of those who died were above 60, where the risk of contracting Covid-19 is higher.
“More than 85 per cent of those who died of Covid-19 had underlying health issues such as diabetes, hypertension and so on.
“So when they were infected with Covid-19, their condition is worse than those who do not have health issues,” he said.