KUCHING: Sarawak recorded eight new positive Covid-19 cases today — five in Kuching, Miri (two) and Bintulu (one) — bringing the total number of positive cases in the state to 732.
Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said case 725 was a local infection involving a close contact to a positive case (case 724) reported on last Wednesday.
“The case was detected through active screening activity on Oct 7 and the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rT-PCR) test result of the case was found to be positive on the same day. The case has been admitted to Bintulu Hospital for further treatment.
“Other contacts to the case were negative and they will undergo a second screening test on the 10th day,” he said at a press conference on Covid-19 update today.
Meanwhile, cases 726 and 727 were imported infections involving two male Indian citizens who entered Sarawak to work in a private company in Miri.
“They arrived in Malaysia on Sept 17 via Kuala Lumpur and had undergone 14-day quarantine and screening tests twice in which the results came back negative.
“Both cases continued their journey to Miri on Oct 4 before being re-admitted to a quarantine centre and underwent screening tests in a private hospital on Oct 7. The results came back positive on the same day.
“Both cases are categorised as ‘Import A’ cases whereby they had been infected while in their home country of India,” he explained.
Case 728 is a local man who travelled to Kelana Jaya, Selangor on Sept 22 to Sept 27 to visit family members. He had fever from Sept 27 before undergoing a self-screening test last Tuesday and reported positive for the virus two days later. The case was categorised as ‘Import B’ whereby he had been infected while in Selangor.
For cases 729, 730 and 731, they were local infections involving close contacts and living in the same house to case 719 which was reported last Tuesday. Following that, Kuching now has one new cluster named Bah Arnab Cluster.
“Thirteen other close contacts to case 719 were found to be negative for the first screening test, but they will undergo the second test on the 10th day,” Uggah added.
Case 732 is an imported case (Import B) involving a local man who had a history of travelling to Sabah on Sept 19 to Sept 27 for business purposes. Although his Covid-19 test result was negative prior to returning to Sarawak, his test result on the 10thday after arriving here came back positive for the virus last Wednesday.
Investigation and contact tracing to all these cases are ongoing.
Uggah also announced that there was no new recovery and discharged cases, which remained at 684 or 93.44 percent.
With the addition of eight cases, there are now 29 cases receiving treatment at hospitals — 16 in Sarawak General Hospital, eight in Miri Hospital, three in Sibu Hospital and two in Bintulu Hospital.
The death toll in the state remains at 19 or 2.60 percent to date.
Meanwhile, 16 new persons-under-investigation (PUI) cases were reported and four are still awaiting laboratory test results.
