KUALA LUMPUR, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia reported 277 new COVID-19 cases, the highest daily number to date, pushing the national total to 8,247 cases, the health ministry said on Thursday.
Health ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said at a press briefing that 270 of the new cases are foreign nationals detained at an immigration detention center on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur.
The facility was the first such detention depot where cluster infections were found among foreign detainees, before similar clusters were detected in several other facilities.
Noor Hisham said the detainees might be infected due to the confined space in the facility but they were tested negative in the previous screening.
He emphasized that new local transmissions involving Malaysians were only single digit as only four cases reported on Thursday were local transmission involving Malaysian citizens.
Meanwhile, another 28 cases have been released bringing the total cured and discharged to 6,559 cases or 79.5 percent of all cases.
Of the remaining 1,573 active cases, six are currently being held in intensive care and two of those are in need of assisted breathing. No new deaths have been reported, leaving the total deaths at 115.
