MOH team to monitor Covid-19 in Sarawak as cases increase, says Health DG
The Health Ministry (MOH) has dispatched a team to monitor and enhance on-the-ground operations against the Covid-19 spread in Sarawak, said Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
This came as the state continued to record an increasing number of new positive cases and clusters.
According to the Health director-general, Sarawak has...
The Health Ministry (MOH) has dispatched a team to monitor and enhance on-the-ground operations against the Covid-19 spread in Sarawak, said Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
This came as the state continued to record an increasing number of new positive cases and clusters.
According to the Health director-general, Sarawak has recorded a total of eight infection clusters to date.
From these, three of them are still active and continued to record new cases as of today.
"There had been an increasing number of clusters that were identified in Kuching, and we have sent a MOH team to observe our activities on the ground.
"We are also going to enhance our actions, and increase the contact tracing activities in Sarawak to detect positive cases there," he told a press conference in Putrajaya today.
Noor Hisham was answering a question from a reporter on what kind of action the MOH is taking to tackle the spread of the pandemic in the East Malaysian state.
According to the latest statistics provided by the ministry, the active clusters in Sarawak, namely the Sentosa, Stutong, and Kuching Engineering clusters, each recorded one new case as of noon today.
These had increased the number of positive cases for each cluster to eight, seven, and three, respectively.
Asked on whether the authorities would consider re-implementing the full-scale movement control order (MCO) on Sarawak, Noor Hisham (photo) said so far they still have the situation under control.
For the record, MCO is akin to a semi-lockdown and was the original type of control order against the pandemic that Malaysia introduced in March. It had since been relaxed in stages.
"Only if needed, then we will implement the enhanced MCO at any identified locality or clusters," Noor Hisham added, referring to the strictest type of MCO which has only been applied in extreme circumstances.
Another set of statistics published by the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee earlier today detailed the new cases.
According to the state authority, the Stutong cluster involved a local woman who sold vegetables at the Stutong market in Kuching. She tested positive after undergoing a test on July 18 as part of the government's active contact tracing activities at the market.
The second case in Sarawak recorded today involved a female patient at a healthcare facility that was affected by the Sentosa cluster. She was tested for Covid-19 on July 21 as part of contact tracing activities and was found positive today.
The other case involving an engineering company in Kuching was a man, who was among the close contacts of the cluster's index case. He first tested negative on July 12, but a second test conducted on July 21 returned positive earlier today.
Travelers no longer required to do pre-departure test
Meanwhile, Noor Hisham said travelers heading to Malaysia were no longer required to do the Covid-19 test at their country of origin three days prior to their departure.
This came as all travelers would be required to do the RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) test upon arrival and undergo mandatory 14-day quarantine at facilities approved by the government starting tomorrow.
"So now we have returned to the mandatory quarantine at quarantine centres. So we no longer require them (travelers) to do the Covid-19 test three days before they come here.
"However, they are still subject to (the rules in) their country of origin or airlines they are taking. If they require the travelers to do the test prior to departure, then they would still have to do that," Noor Hisham clarified.
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