60 Workers Test Positive In Rembau

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PETALING JAYA: Fifty-three foreign workers have tested positive for Covid-19 at a factory in Pedas, Rembau, a cluster that the Health Ministry discovered about a week ago.

Of the number, 25 are Nepali, 18 are Bangladeshi, eight are Indonesian and two are from Myanmar, says Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah (pic).

Also testing positive in the cluster are seven Malaysians, which brings the number of these cases to 60.

Dr Noor Hisham said that a total of 786 people, including workers and their families, had been screened for the disease, out of whom 60 tested positive, 286 were negative, while 440 were still waiting for their results.

The disease was first detected when an employee of the factory became sick. He had fever, cough, cold, breathlessness and headache on April 5.

The employee received treatment at a health clinic, where screening for the disease was conducted on April 10, with his result being confirmed positive two days later.

“The cause of the cluster is still being investigated,” said Dr Noor Hisham.

Malaysia reported 68 more cases yesterday, bringing the total number of Covid-19 infections in the country to 6,535.

There were no new deaths reported, which means the country’s death toll remains at 107.

Malaysia also discharged 88 more patients in the same 24-hour span, which means 4,864 patients have recovered from Covid-19 since the outbreak began, or 74.43% of all cases.

There are currently 17 patients being treated at the intensive care unit with seven on ventilator support. There are 1,564 active cases being treated at the country’s health facilities at present.

Dr Noor Hisham also said that they had not made a decision to allow childcare centres to reopen, although there were many requests for this.

He said factories and industries had asked them to consider the request, as employees had no one to look after their children when they were working.

“We are worried about the control of children. If you look at childcare centres before Covid-19, the spread of the hand, foot and mouth disease was occurring.

“We haven’t made a decision yet but are still studying it,” he said during his daily briefing yesterday.

On the conditional movement control order (MCO), Dr Noor Hisham said that big factories seemed to comply with the standard operating procedure (SOP), as they had the capacity and means to do so.

He said the concern was whether the smaller industries would comply with the SOP.

Dr Noor Hisham said the effects of the conditional MCO would only be known in about 10 to 14 days and if targets could be achieved. - Star

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