SINGAPORE - A total of 12 new Covid-19 cases have been confirmed in Singapore, including three Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) servicemen who were in France on duty.

In an update on Wednesday (March 11), the Ministry of Health said that a case confirmed on Tuesday is also an RSAF serviceman who was in France. This means that at least four servicemen are now infected.

Of the 12 new coronavirus cases, eight, including the RSAF personnel, are imported, which means that they caught the disease overseas.

This is the largest number of imported cases Singapore has seen in a day and comes as countries around the world struggle to contain the virus.

The other imported cases involve people who travelled recently to France, Indonesia, Japan, Spain, the Philippines, Britain and the United States.

Of the four locally transmitted cases, one is linked to the private dinner at Safra Jurong; another, a staff nurse at Ng Teng Fong General Hospital, is linked to an imported case from the Philippines; while contact tracing is ongoing for the other two.

There are now 40 cases linked to the the dinner at the Joy Garden restaurant on Feb 15, Singapore's biggest coronavirus cluster.

The latest update brings the total number of cases here to 178. Three more patients have been discharged, which means that 96 have so far recovered.

As of Wednesday, nine were in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

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