‘Kuching engineering cluster’ detected

Company’s premises disinfected after a worker and close contact test positive

PETALING JAYA: A new Covid-19 cluster, dubbed “Kuching engineering cluster”, has emerged in Sarawak, says Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

“There have been two cases reported from this cluster.

“The first involved a worker of the company who was treated at a medical facility on July 9 after showing breathing symptoms.

“He was tested positive for Covid19 on the same day,” the Health director-general said in a statement.

Dr Noor Hisham said 32 close contacts of the patient had been identified and screened for the disease.

“Of the 16 colleagues and 16 family members, one was found positive while 16 tested negative,” he said, adding that the remaining results were pending.

Dr Noor Hisham said disinfection and cleaning works had been conducted at the company’s premises.

“The cause of the cluster is still under investigation,” he said.

Over the past 24 hours, a total of 14 new cases and four recoveries were recorded.

Of the 14 new infections, three were imported cases.

“From the 11 local infections, three are Malaysians while the rest are foreigners,” he said.

Dr Noor Hisham said the two local cases were from Sarawak and one in Sabah.

“The eight cases involving foreigners are from close contacts of two positive cases earlier from the Sepang immigration depot cluster,” he said, adding that they were found after another round of testing.

“These cases were from repeat tests of close contacts of the 115 detainees placed in Block C on July 10,” he said.

“There is no risk of them spreading the infection to the public because they were already isolated in the depot,” he said.

Dr Noor Hisham said only two depot clusters remained active – Bukit Jalil and Sepang.

Currently, the nationwide fatalities still remain at 122 as of yesterday.

Watch the video thestartv.com