On Sunday (Feb. 9), the Ministry of Health (MOH) announced that four more confirmed cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus (nCoV) have been discharged from hospital.

They are Cases 10, 13, 22 and 26.

Case 22 is one of the Singaporean evacuees from Wuhan.

This means that Singapore has its first Singaporean to have recovered from the nCoV.

He is a male Singaporean aged 41 and was warded in the isolation room at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID).

Six patients fully recovered

This means that six patients have fully recovered from the virus and have been discharged from hospital.

Previously, as of Feb. 7, only two patients were discharged.

Of the remaining 37 who are still in hospital, MOH said that most are stable or improving.

In addition to the discharged cases, MOH also announced three new confirmed cases of nCoV.

This brings the total number of confirmed cases in Singapore to 43.

As of Feb. 9, 516 of the suspect cases have tested negative for the nCoV.

Test results for the remaining 98 cases are pending.

Contract tracing underway

MOH said that contact tracing for the confirmed cases is ongoing.

Once identified, MOH will closely monitor all close contacts.

As a precautionary measure, they will be quarantined for 14 days from their last exposure to the patient.

In addition, all other identified contacts who have a low risk of being infected will be under active surveillance, and will be contacted daily to monitor their health status.

MOH has identified 989 close contacts as of Feb. 9.

Of the 892 who are still in Singapore, 845 have been contacted and are being quarantined or isolated.

Efforts are ongoing to contact the remaining 47 close contacts.

Top image by Sulaiman Daud.