PUTRAJAYA - EIGHT more people were warded at the Malacca Hospital on Wednesday for suspected meningitis, bringing the number to 46.
Health Ministry director-general Tan Sri Dr Ismail Merican said two were being treated at the intensive care unit but were expected to be transferred out by Thursday.
Don't wear masks: Authorities
SOME 35 of the 151 students were absent from school on Wednesday while several parents took their children home before classes ended.
This came in the wake of an Education Department directive to the school authorities to ask the children to not wear face masks, which the parent-teacher association had provided a day earlier.
The others - 39 Road Transport Department (JPJ) academy trainees, a trainer, a woman who had contact with a trainee, two trainee x-ray personnel and a trainee nurse - are in the isolation ward.
'Those in the isolation ward are on the road to recovery. As we have stressed before, preventive and control measures will go on until all patients have fully recovered,' he said on Wednesday.
Dr Ismail said a medical team was still stationed at the JPJ academy in Tiang Dua in Malacca to monitor the remaining 81 trainees there. Anyone showing the slightest symptoms would be referred to the hospital for treatment.
'I would also like to stress that the meningococcal meningitis infection has nothing to do with Nipah encephalitis or Influenza A (H1N1),' he said.
'Good personal hygiene, proper ventilation and staying away from crowded areas are good preventive measures.'
Meanwhile, assurances by health authorities that the meningitis outbreak was under control did not allay worries of some parents of children studying in SRJK Tiang Dua. -- THE STAR/ANN
