PUTRAJAYA (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - Malaysia recorded 847 new Covid-19 infections in the last 24 hours on Thursday (Oct 22), with Sabah continuing to record the highest number of cases at 578.

The daily figures have been above 800 cases in five of the last six days.

The Health Ministry's director-general, Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, said there were five new Covid-19 fatalities to bring the death toll to 204.

Of the five new death fatalities, Dr Noor Hisham said four are in Sabah, while one is in Kedah.

Malaysia has logged a cumulative total of 23,804 Covid-19 cases since January.

Dr Noor Hisham said the bulk of the new cases continued to come from Sabah with 68.2 per cent of the 847 recorded with a boost in mass testing.

"This is due to the hard work that is being done in Sabah, where there are more health workers who have been mobilised from Peninsular Malaysia and also in Sabah to conduct Covid-19 screening at the field.

"At the same time, there are more lab results returning from the RT-PCR tests, as well as the antigen RTK (rapid test kits) tests from our screening exercise," he said at his daily press conference.

Selangor on Thursday recorded the second highest figure of 132 new cases, followed by Negeri Sembilan, with 38 cases, and the federal territory of Labuan, with 29.

Of the other two federal territories, Kuala Lumpur notched 23 cases and Putrajaya four.

There were five new imported cases, involving four individuals arriving from India and one from the United States.