Bangladeshi With TB Fleeing Ipoh Hospital Is Fake News

Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun has no such Bangladeshi TB patient called Md Joyal.

KUALA LUMPUR, May 23 – A Perak state executive councillor has rubbished a WhatsApp message claiming that a Bangladeshi worker diagnosed with chronic tuberculosis (TB) had fled from an Ipoh hospital.

Malay Mail reported Perak health, consumer affairs, civil society, national integration and human resources committee chairman A. Sivanesan as saying that checks with Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun showed that it had no such patient.

“The case itself is fake. There was no admission of a Bangladesh foreign worker with that particular name and disease [that] was reported in the hospital,” Sivanesan was quoted telling a press conference in Ipoh.

Locals reportedly received a message on the social messaging app that a so-called Bangladeshi worker named Md Joyal with TB had escaped from Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun to Penang.

Sivanesan said 635 TB cases were registered at government hospitals in Perak as of May 23, 97 per cent of which involved Malaysians. Only 22 cases involved foreigners, namely from Indonesia (13), Vietnam (three), Nepal (two), Myanmar (two), India (one) and Bangladesh (one).

“Almost 80 per cent of TB cases in Perak are lung TB. People can be infected by breathing in air droplets from a cough or sneeze of an infected person.

“However, a person who is diagnosed with TB need to be isolated and need to receive full treatment, failing to do so can be taken action by the authorities,” the DAP lawmaker was quoted saying.

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