PUTRAJAYA, April 21 -- Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said today that the Ministry of Health (MOH) has not ascertained if asymptomatic coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients can infect others.

In a press conference here, the Health director-general pointed out that the SARS-CoV2 virus that causes Covid-19 was still novel and required further study before its characteristics could be determined.

"[With] regards to the population base, yes, we know there are asymptomatic (cases) but this is a new virus, so we need to learn a lot about this new virus. The behaviour of (the) virus, whether they respond to antibodies.

"As I have told you, the first, second, third and fourth cases that we detected, cases detected from the index case in Singa...