PETALING JAYA: Malaysia recorded 18,560 new Covid-19 infections on Thursday (March 31), says the Health Ministry.

       According to the ministry's CovidNow portal, local transmissions accounted for 18,373 of Wednesday's new Covid-19 infections, while there were 187 imported cases.

       The cumulative total number of Covid-19 cases in Malaysia now stands at 4,201,919 since the pandemic began.

       Meanwhile, the ministry's GitHub data repository showed that this is the fifth day in a row that less than 20,000 cases were reported.

       Recoveries continued to outpace new infections, with 21,186 recoveries reported, bringing the number of active Covid-19 cases in the country to 206,591 on Wednesday.

       The number of active cases went up by 263 to 206,854 as the number of recoveries at 18,253 was slightly below the number of new infections.

       Only 0.13%, or 267, of the active cases are warded in intensive care units, with 164, or 0.08%, needing ventilator support, CovidNow reported.

       The portal also reported that there were 44 deaths due to Covid-19 on Thursday, with 8 classified as brought-in-dead (BID).

       Since the pandemic began, Malaysia has recorded a total of 34,983 deaths, of which 7,381 were BID.