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More than 1,000 Malaysian students infected with Covid-19 in a month

This article is more than 12 months old

PUTRAJAYA: More than 1,000 schoolgoing children have been infected with Covid-19 since the third wave began a month ago.

Malaysia's Health director-general Noor Hisham Abdullah said from Sept 20 to Oct 21, about 587 cases were pupils aged seven to 12 and 670 cases were of those between the ages of 13 and 18.

Dr Noor Hisham said the government has so far given orders to 12 schools in the country to be shut down following discoveries of Covid-19 cases among the students.

"If a student is infected with Covid-19, we will close their school for a week to undergo disinfection and sanitisation work. We will also conduct contact tracing activities.

"The infections are from outside but it could be spread in the schools," he added.

Malaysia recorded 847infections yesterday with Sabah continuing to record the highest number of cases at 578. The daily figures have been above 800 in five of the last six days.

Dr Noor Hisham said there were five fatalities, bringing the toll to 204. Malaysia has had a total of 23,804 cases since January.

Meanwhile, Indonesia reported 4,432 cases yesterday, taking the total to 377,541. There were 102 deaths, bringing the total to 12,959.

Indonesia has the highest number of cases and deaths in South-east Asia.

The Philippines reported 1,664 cases yesterday, the third straight day of fewer than 2,000 daily cases and 38 more deaths.

Total cases had risen to 363,888 while deaths have increased to 6,783. - THE STAR, REUTERS

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