By Karen Bong
KUCHING, March 12: Ten members of the same family from a village at Jalan Main Bazaar in Sri Aman all came down with Covid-19 which then spread to two students of a secondary school.
This has sparked a new cluster known as Jalan Main Bazaar in Sri Aman with 12 positive cases.
State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas revealed that the Jalan Main Bazaar Cluster was a community cluster that formed in a village at Jalan Main Bazaar.
“It involves a family which then spread and involved students at a secondary school in Sri Aman,” he told a press conference on Covid-19 situation update for Sarawak here today.
The index case of the cluster, Case 9,908, is a 52-year-old woman who was detected through pre-surgery screening at Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) on March 1.
“As a result of close contact tracing, all contacts have been identified and isolated at a quarantine centre in Sri Aman.
“The rT-PCR test screenings found 11 more positive cases among them involving 10 family members to the index cases (Case 10672, 11075, 11076, 11077, 11078, 11080, 11081 and 11082) as well as two schoolmates to one of the contacts (Case 11696 and 12039),” Uggah added.
All the patients are currently isolated and treated at SGH and Quarantine and Low-Risk Treatment Centre (PKRC) Sri Aman.
As of today, 133 individuals have been screened whereby 12 were positive while 103 were negative and 18 are still awaiting lab test results.
Uggah, who is also Deputy Chief Minister, emphasised that all close contacts to the positive cases identified have been admitted to a quarantine centre for the purpose of screenings and isolation.
“Contact tracing to other contacts involving this cluster is still ongoing,” he added.
Meanwhile, Jalan Main Bazaar Cluster was one of three clusters detected in Sarawak today. The two other clusters involving longhouses were detected at Meradong known as Buluh Pasi with 21 positive cases and at Miri dubbed Sena with 61 positive cases. – DayakDaily
