Health screening to be beefed up at Johor entry point
JOHOR BARU: Health screening at all six entry points in Johor have been beefed up with 24-hour medical teams on standby following the detection of Zika cases in Singapore.
Johor Health and Environment committee chairman Datuk Ayub Rahmat said three teams of six officers from the Health and Immigration Departments had been put on three rotating shifts daily.
He also advised motorists driving between Johor Baru and Singapore to spray their cars with insecticide.
“Visitors entering or exiting via any of the six entry points will have to pass a screening device to check their body temperature.
“Those with body temperature of above 37ºC will have to go through a medical examination,” he told reporters after a working visit to the Sultan Iskandar Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) complex here yesterday.
The entry points are Sultan Iskandar CIQ, Sultan Abu Bakar CIQ, Port of Tanjung Pelepas, Johor Port, Stulang Laut Ferry Terminal as well as Puteri Harbour Ferry Terminal.
Some 71 million visitors were recorded to have passed through the checkpoint at Sultan Iskandar CIQ here last year, of whom some 542,000 underwent through health screenings, said Ayub.
“The screening is not something new as we have been constantly monitoring our visitors. But we have since beefed up our efforts and extended this to all entry points in the district,” he said, adding that so far, there were no Zika cases in Johor.
Ayub also said some 50,000 vehicles passed through the Sultan Iskandar CIQ alone, which meant there were chances of pests passing through this way.
The Aedes mosquitoes, he said, did not only carry Zika virus but dengue as well, which had a far more fatal impact on Malaysians.
“Zika is something new but people should not forget that it has not caused death while dengue has taken the lives of many.
“While we do not want people to take the Zika issue lightly, we also do not want to cause panic,” he said, urging people to ensure cleanliness and destroy possible breeding grounds of mosquitoes.