‘I’m not patient zero’: Malaysia’s 26th coronavirus patient speaks up about new Covid-19 cluster
- Hisham Hamdan, a top official at Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund Khazanah, said the second wave of cases had not originated from him
- He did not become infected while on a business trip in Shanghai in January, he said, as he only displayed symptoms five weeks later
Malaysia’s “Patient 26”– described by the Health Ministry as an “extraordinary spreader” of the Covid-19 virus – has come out publicly to contest the perception that he birthed the second wave of coronavirus cases in the country.
The Health Ministry announced Thursday that the man, a top official with Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah, had been in close contact with 21 new confirmed cases of the virus while in business meetings with them. Malaysia on Friday said it had identified 28 new cases, bringing the total number of patients to 83.
The ministry said it had traced 215 people who had been in contact with the man and was awaiting test results from 180 of them.
On Friday, the patient, who identified himself as Hisham Hamdan, stepped forward to clarify that while the new wave of Covid-19 cases – the nation’s first fully-local cluster – was linked to him, “being linked to me and having originated from me are two entirely different things”.
“The Ministry of Health is still searching for Patient Zero. I just happened to be the first person who was tested from this string of meetings” where others were infected, he said in a two-page statement in which he clarified that the Health Ministry had not yet found Patient Zero for the second wave of infections, and that he also did not catch the virus during a business trip to Shanghai in January.
Hisham, who had been in Shanghai for a work trip from January 13 to January 17, took part in a meeting in Kuala Lumpur on February 24 with board members from local government-linked company UDA Holdings.