Italian, Japanese nationals test positive for COVID-19 in Malaysia, 25 in total

Malaysian authorities on Friday confirmed two more cases of COVID-19 in the country, both involving foreign nationals.

Both cases had a history of recent travel to areas where cases of the virus had already been reported, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

A 54-year-old male Italian national, who is married to a local, had recently travelled to Italy and returned to Malaysia on Feb. 21 and started showing symptoms the next day.

"He had symptoms of fever, cough, joint and body aches on Feb. 22 and had received outpatient treatment for symptoms for three consecutive days from Feb. 23-25. The COVID-19 screening test was conducted and confirmed positive on Feb. 28," it said.

The other case involved a 41-year-old female Japanese national who has travelled to Japan in January and Indonesia in early February. She was confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 on Feb. 27.

The latest two cases pushed the total cases in the country to 25, of whom 22 had fully recovered and had been discharged from hospital, it said.

The ministry also said, following an interagency meeting over COVID-19 developments internationally, temporary restrictions were imposed on all visitors from South Korea, including foreign nationals who have been in Daegu city and Cheongdo county within 14 days prior to arrival in Malaysia.

The ministry also advised Malaysians to delay non-essential travel to the areas in South Korea, Japan, Italy, Iran and China that were affected by the outbreak.