KUALA LUMPUR, April 30 – The Ministry of Health is planning to screen undocumented migrants for Covid-19, but further action on their status in the country is up to the National Security Council (NSC), said Health Director-General Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
“About undocumented migrants, what is certain at MOH, we’ll screen them first and also when we screen, we [must] confirm they don’t bring the virus or are not Covid-19 positive,” the DG said today in a media briefing.
“And we will isolate them in EMCO for two weeks, and [then] we will screen them again. If negative, then we’re sure they’re not infected. That’s the practice at MOH. Other than that, we leave it to NSC to take the next action.”
He further added that targeted approach is being followed in handling undocumented migrant cases during testing.
“We do a targeted approach, so we look at an area and we identify the foreigners in the area.”
Yesterday, Senior Minister for Defence, Ismail Sabri Yaakob said that the government will move all undocumented immigrants in Enhanced Movement Control Order (EMCO) areas to immigration detention centres as soon as the EMCO is revoked.
“If these detention centres cannot accommodate them, we will send them to the special prisons,” he was quoted by The Sun Daily.
11 special prisons have been gazetted by the Home Ministry if needed, and have been operating since April 23.
Many of the EMCO areas have a large number of migrant workers, including Menara City One, Selangor Mansion, Malayan Mansion and the Selayang market.
