KUCHING, Sept 22: Two new Covid-19 cases were reported in Sarawak today with one local transmission in Kuching and another imported case in Bintulu, thus raising the state tally of positive cases to 703.
With a new local case, the status of Kuching District has thus been reverted to yellow zone.
State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC), in a statement today, revealed that Case 702 involved a local man from Serian who worked in a construction site in Kuching.
The case was detected from Covid-19 screening when receiving treatment at a private hospital in the city on Sept 21. He had developed symptoms like coughing on Sept 18.
The patient was immediately referred to the Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) to be isolated and treated.
SDMC said that this case was categorised as local transmission considering that the man had no history of travelling abroad or to other states in Malaysia.
Investigation and contact tracing were actively being conducted by the Kuching and Serian Division Health Offices.
As for Case 703, SDMC informed that it involved an Indonesian man who entered Sarawak to work at a shipping company in Bintulu.
The case arrived in Malaysia through Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) from Jakarta, Indonesia on Sept 12 and had been screened with RTK antigen upon arrival in which the result was negative.
He continued his journey to Bintulu on the same day and upon arrival at Bintulu Airport, the case was brought to the quarantine facility at a hotel in the town to complete the mandatory 14-day quarantine procedure.
He then took the rT-PCR swab test on Sept 12 and the result was negative on Sept 13. But the second test on Sept 21 returned positive and the patient was immediately admitted to Bintulu Hospital. He was asymptomatic.
SDMC said this was categorised as case Import A as the case was infected in his country of origin before entering Sarawak. Close contact tracing is being actively carried out.
Meanwhile, there were no recoveries and discharges recorded today and as such, the total number of recovered cases in Sarawak is maintained at 680 or 96.73 per cent of total positive cases so far.
A total of four patients were still being isolated and treated in hospitals with one each in Sibu Hospital, Sungai Buloh Hospital Selangor, SGH and Bintulu Hospital.
SDMC also informed that the one case screened in Sandakan, Sabah and detected in Sarawak was receiving treatment in Bintulu Hospital.
Only one cluster remained active in Sarawak which was the Alam Cluster in Bintulu but all eight cases have recovered and been discharged from hospital.
Sarawak also reported eight more persons-under-investigation (PUI) with no cases pending laboratory test results.
In addition, 140 more persons-under-surveillance (PUS) have been checked in to identified hotels to undergo quarantine.
As of today, there were a total number of 647 individuals undergoing quarantine in 11 hotels throughout the state. —DayakDaily
