By Karen Bong
KUCHING, March 19: The Semuja Immigration Depot Cluster in Serian, which was linked to illegal immigrants, has swelled overnight with triple digits leap of 146 new Covid-19 cases recorded today, taking the cluster’s total to 245.
State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas revealed that of the figure, 138 cases were detected today from targeted mass screening conducted at the Depot.
“All the cases did not show any symptoms (asymptomatic),” he told a press conference on Covid-19 situation update for Sarawak today.
As of today, a total of 592 individuals have been screened whereby 210 were negative and 137 were still waiting for lab test results.
The Depot cluster was only declared yesterday (March 18) following a huge outbreak of 99 cases confirmed among detained illegal immigrants.
The cluster was identified following a mass screening carried out by the Serian Division Health Department after receiving information of a positive case among illegal immigrants who had been driven out from the Tebedu International Gateway at the Sarawak-Kalimantan border to Indonesia on March 11.
It was discovered from initial screenings that the immigration officers who escorted the illegal immigrants out of the State were negative.
Meanwhile, the Semuja Immigration Depot Cluster was one of 11 active clusters in Sarawak which recorded an increase in cases today.
With a triple-digit increase of cases in the cluster, Serian was pushed to the top of the list of daily infections in Sarawak which logged 407 cases today.
The other districts that reported new cases were Sibu (65), Miri (49), Betong (40), Bintulu (26), Sri Aman (23), Kuching (19), Samarahan (11), Kapit (10), Song (6), Subis (5), Meradong (4), Lundu (3), Julau and Kanowit (2 each) while Dalat and Limbang registered one case each. -DayakDaily
