KOTA KINABALU: Sabah is seeing a sharp increase in Covid-19 cases due to close contacts of current active Covid-19 clusters on Tuesday (Jan 25).

       Minister in charge of Covid-19 matters in the state, Datuk Masidi Manjun said there were 314 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday (Jan 25), with yet another education related cluster detected in Tawau district.

       "There is a hike in the number of new cases on Tuesday compared to Monday, which is 314 from 118 cases," he said in his daily Covid-19 statement.

       "This is due to close contacts of existing cases and existing clusters," he said.

       Out of these cases, Sandakan, Kota Kinabalu, Beaufort and Tuaran tops the chart with 68, 61, 39 and 34 cases respectively.

       Meanwhile, Masidi said the new Covid-19 cluster named Kluster Jalan Sri Balung involved 18 students thus far.

       He said the case index was a Form Four male student from SMK Balung who first showed symptoms of the virus on Jan 19 and tested positive for Covid-19 on Jan 21.

       "Screening from his close contacts led to 17 others also testing positive for Covid-19," he said.