The deadly coronavirus will not cause victims to act like zombies, Malaysia’s government said on social media, as officials act to correct the spread of misinformation surrounding the outbreak.
As medical authorities seek to contain the virus, some social media users in Malaysia made a connection between the disease and the walking dead.
Malaysia’s health ministry dismissed the rumor in a tweet, however, saying, “The claim that individuals infected with this virus will behave like zombies is not true … Patients can recover.”
A number of posts in Malaysia on social media have wrongly claimed the number of deaths or infected people in the country. Police have arrested six people for spreading misinformation about the virus, a Malaysian Communications and Multimedia statement said.
In the latest arrest, on Thursday, a 28-year-old woman was investigated for “improper use of network facilities.”
If convicted, she can be fined up to 50,000 ringgit or be jailed for a year, or both.
Eight people in Malaysia have been found with the virus – all Chinese nationals.
The Philippines said Sunday a 44-year-old Chinese man had died of the new coronavirus, the first fatality from the growing outbreak to have died outside of China.
The Department of Health said there were now two confirmed infections in the Philippines, including the man from Wuhan in Hubei Province, the epicenter of the outbreak, who died on Saturday.
The man developed severe pneumonia after being admitted to a government hospital in Manila on January 25, the department said.
The man who died was a companion of a 38-year-old Chinese woman, also from Wuhan, who was the first to test positive for the virus in the Philippines.
While the patient who died was “stable and showed signs of improvement” during his last few days in the hospital, his condition deteriorated in the 24 hours before he died, Health Secretary Francisco Duque told reporters.
Photo: Xinhua
