PUTRAJAYA: Another 341 people died due to Covid-19, says the Health Ministry.

       In a statement on Friday (Sept 10), Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the latest fatalities took the nation's death toll to 19,827.

       Of the 341 deaths, 300 are Malaysians while 41 are foreign nationals.

       A total of 261 of them had comorbidities.

       Dr Noor Hisham said 102 deaths, comprising 82 Malaysians and 20 foreigners, were classified as "brought-in-dead" (BID) cases.

       Selangor has the highest fatalities at 102, including 93 BID cases.

       On Friday, Malaysia reported 21,176 new cases, of which 98.4% are those with mild symptoms or asymptomatic.

       The remaining 1.6% were those in Categories 3, 4 and 5.

       There were 21,476 people who have recovered and been discharged.

       The number of active Covid-19 cases dropped to 242,161.

       Of the total, 1,310 are in intensive care units with 935 being confirmed Covid-19 cases while 375 are still under investigations.

       Dr Noor Hisham said 103 more patients were found to be infected with the Delta variant.

       He said the discovery was made by UKM's Medical Molecular Biology Institute (44 cases) and Tropical Infectious Diseases Research and Education Centre (59 cases).

       Of the Delta variant cases, 24 each were in Johor and Kedah, Melaka and Selangor (13 each), Kelantan (10), Perak (seven), Terengganu (five), Kuala Lumpur (four) and Negri Sembilan (three).

       Dr Noor Hisham said to date, 1,081 cases have been confirmed to be of the Delta variant – making it the most dominant variant in the country.

       Another 209 cases were of the Beta variant while 14 were of the Alpha variant.