KUCHING, March 31: A Covid-19 positive lorry driver of a factory in Jalan Upper Lanang in Sibu has infected 24 of his colleagues and 18 close contacts among family members at his longhouse in Nanga Assan.
This thus triggered a workplace cluster dubbed Bulatan Aman in Sibu.
State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC), in a daily report on the Covid-19 situation in Sarawak today, revealed that this workplace cluster involved a factory at Jalan Upper Lanang located near Jalan Aman roundabout in Sibu.
The index case, or Case 14,193, involved a 52-year-old man who worked as a lorry driver under the factory chain operation and had started showing symptoms on March 18.
He was detected from symptomatic screening at Lanang Health Clinic on March 19.
Further investigation discovered that the case was possibly infected from the community in Sibu District and that infections have spread in a longhouse of the index case at Nanga Assan in Sibu.
Initial investigation and active case detection as well as screenings on family members and co-workers yielded 42 more cases, out of which 18 were close contacts among family members and 24 were co-workers.
As of today, a total of 89 individuals have been screened whereby 23 were negative and 23 still awaiting lab tests results.
All positive cases are currently isolated and treated at Quarantine and Low-Risk Treatment Centre (PKRC) Sibu.
Bulatan Aman is one of three clusters declared in Sarawak today. The other two are Jalan Kingsway Cluster in Miri which is linked to a workplace with 51 cases and Jalan Baji Cluster in Sarikei which is a community cluster with 20 cases.
With three new clusters, the number of active clusters in Sarawak has ballooned to 36.
Meanwhile, Sarawak reported one Covid-19 fatality in Sibu and 176 new cases with Sibu topping the list of daily infections at 30 cases followed by Kuching (29), Bintulu (25), Miri (19), Sarikei (13), Serian (11), Beluru (10), Meradong (8), Kapit and Matu (6 each), Julau, Samarahan and Sri Aman (5 each) while Marudi, Saratok and Simnunjan has one each.
This thus increased the state tally of positive cases to 16,390 and the death toll to 108. -DayakDaily
