KUALA LUMPUR — The five generations of infections linked to the Sri Petaling Mosque religious cluster now make up some 40,000 people who could be infected by Covid-19.

Malaysia’s Ministry of Health (MOH) director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the 40,000 people consist of family members and close contacts of index cases.

“We do have figures of about 12,000 who were screened for index cases.

“But we are not only looking at index cases of those who have attended the gathering but also their family members and close contacts. That’s how we got the figure of 40,000,” said Dr Noor Hisham at MOH’s daily press conference on Saturday (April 4).

Earlier this week, the MOH said that from the religious cluster, 711 cases had infected their families.

“You can see that within one month, we have seen transmission to the fifth generation.

“So index cases infected the first generation, second generation and it continues until the fifth generation,” said Dr Noor Hisham. 

He also pointed out several groups that are considered high risk. They include close contacts and family members and healthcare workers who deal with patients all the time.

“Healthcare workers are even more at risk now when patients do not disclose certain information such as their travel history and close contacts.

“So now we tell all the healthcare workers to treat patients with pneumonia as Covid-19 until proven otherwise,” he said.

The MOH on Saturday had reported another 150 new Covid-19 positive cases, bringing the total to 3,483 cases in the country.

Dr Noor Hisham said of the 150 new cases, 80 were related to the Sri Petaling religious gathering.

Malaysia also saw another four deaths on Saturday, bringing the total death toll to 57 cases or 1.64 per cent of the total number of cases. MALAY MAIL