KUCHING: The recent spike in Covid-19 cases in Sarawak with 407 positive cases reported last Friday is due to the positive cases involving detainees at the Semuja Immigration Detention Centre in Serian.
Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said as of today, a total of 704 individuals have been screened with 245 of them tested positive, all involving detainees.
“A total of 459 individuals who are staff of the Immigration Department and close contacts have tested negative,” he said in a press conference on the daily Covid-19 update today.
Uggah said that a second swab test will be taken on Mar 29.
“At the detention depot, there are about 463 detainees, and they are within a very confined area. Plus, they are not allowed to go out because they are detained there.
“This situation is the same in other prisons, because if you look at the cases in Malaysia, that is where the virus spread very fast and involved many which we now see happening in Semuja Immigration Detention Depot,” he said.
He added from the initial findings, there seemed to be some issues on the implementation of the standard operating procedures (SOPs) that has been set.
“We (SDMC) have prepared the SOPs, because over time a number of illegal foreigners (Pati) when they are caught, they would be quarantined for 14 days, screened twice and only put in detention after they tested negative for the virus,” he said.
He explained that if they were placed in the detention depot before being quarantined and tested, the possibility the individual having the virus would be high and might spread to others.
“So, we have sent a team to investigate and we want to do a more intensive investigation on the matter,” he said.
On whether there would be active case detection (ACD) to be carried out in prisons, Uggah said SDMC has already carried out surveillance tests a few months ago.
“Thus far, it does not indicate cases (from the prison), that is why we are quite shocked when we have these cases in Semuja. So, we will continue to do the surveillance test,” he said.
He added the authorities managing the detention centres have constantly been reminded to strictly comply with the SOPs.
