The Malaysian Health Ministry on Monday confirmed three new locally-transmitted cases and five imported cases of A/H1N1 flu, bringing up the country's total to 58.

The ministry said all the eight cases were Malaysians and the five imported cases involved two people returning from Australia, one from Britain, one from the Philippines' Manila, and one from Thailand's Phuket.

Meanwhile, the authorities closed a second local primary school named SRK Assunta 2 in Petaling Jaya, a satellite city in Selangor State near here, for a week starting from Monday, after the school confirmed a local transmitted case of the disease.

The first affected local primary school is SJK (C) Jalan Davidson in Kuala Lumpur, which was closed on Sunday till Friday.

In addition, the authorities ordered that four schools within the Klang Valley, an area spanning from Kuala Lumpur to Port Klangin the Selangor State, closed a class each for a week.

The ministry also asked the families of all the affected students to be quarantined at home.

So far, Malaysia has confirmed at least six locally transmitted cases.

(Xinhua News Agency June 23, 2009)