MOH Reports 91 Covid-19 Cases Among Foreigners

About 5% of foreigners screened test positive for Covid-19.

KUALA LUMPUR, June 3 — New Covid-19 cases spiked to 93 today, involving 91 foreigners from an immigration detention centre and a workers’ cluster in Negri Sembilan, the Ministry of Health (MOH) reported.

All the newly reported cases today were local transmissions, including two Malaysians. A total of 55 cases belong to the Bukit Jalil immigration detention centre and 36 cases in the cluster of factory workers in Pedas, Negri Sembilan, totalling 91 cases among foreigners.

The Bukit Jalil immigration detention depot has confirmed 338 Covid-19 cases to date, all involving foreign detainees, out of 1,545 samples, yielding a positivity rate of nearly 22 per cent.

Three other immigration detention depots have reported coronavirus outbreaks too: Semenyih immigration detention depot (66 cases, including 65 foreigners); Sepang immigration detention depot (60 cases, all foreigners); and Putrajaya temporary immigration detention centre (two cases, all foreigners).

Covid-19 clusters in immigration detention centres as of June 3, 2020. Graphic from Ministry of Health.

So far, a total of 256 Covid-19 cases have been reported under the cluster of Pedas factory workers. This involved 242 foreigners and 14 Malaysians. MOH detected this cluster on May 2 after a worker from the factory developed symptoms related to the virus on April 5.

“The positive cases under this cluster were identified through repetitive screening programmes when they were placed in a quarantine centre,” said Health director general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

“They are still in a quarantine centre and do not possess risk of transmitting the virus to the community,” he added.

A total of 136 Nepalese, 55 Bangladeshis, 26 Myanmar people, 21 Indonesians, three Indians and one Vietnamese tested positive for Covid-19 under the Pedas cluster. A total of 142 Covid-19 patients under this cluster have been discharged, while 114 patients are still receiving treatment with zero fatality.

According to MOH, 41,319 foreigners have been screened for Covid-19 as of today, including 2,108 who tested positive. A total of 2,234 are still awaiting test results, while 36,977 tested negative. This means 5.1 per cent of foreigners tested are positive for the virus.

So far, the total reported cases of Covid-19 has reached 7,970, MOH reported today. A total of 61 patients were discharged from hospitals, bringing the total number of recovered patients to 6,531. A total of 1,324 patients are still undergoing treatment in hospitals with six patients admitted to the intensive care unit, and two on ventilators.

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