By Ling Hui
KUCHING, July 27: Some 7,511 swab tests for Covid-19 were conducted on the people in Sarawak either by choice or randomly in efforts to cut the transmission chain, says State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas.
The targeted groups include Covid-19 Influenza-like-illness (ILI) sentinel sites, teachers and local markets while random tests were done at various point of entries (POE) into Sarawak, construction sites and plantations across the state.
“We have done many civilian tests by targeting various groups, trying to catch any possible positive cases so that steps are taken to cut the transmission chain (of the Covid-19 virus),” said Uggah in a press conference on the state’s Covid-19 updates here today.
Out of 1,483 samples taken among ILI cases at 22 medical facilities throughout Sarawak, one was found positive in Sibu in April whereas the remaining 1,482 returned negative results.
Out of the 2,445 tests conducted on teachers and their family members who returned to Sarawak, two were found positive for Covid-19.
Uggah noted the markets covered by SDMC were Sibujaya hawkers market, Sibu central market, Stutong market and the Satok trading complex.
He said 898 samples were taken from traders at those markets and seven turned out positive while 229 cases are still awaiting laboratory test results and the rest were tested negative.
As for the random tests, 1,338 samples were taken from POE, 1,226 from construction sites including foreign workers, and 121 samples were from 13 plantations around Lundu, Sri Aman and Betong.
Out of these numbers, POE returned three positive cases, construction sites 34 and plantations none at the moment as various cases are still waiting for results from the laboratory. —DayakDaily
