By Karen Bong
KUCHING, March 18: A total of 18 people from a longhouse in Sungai Atap, Ulu Strass in Meradong District came down with Covid-19 after a woman imported the disease from Sibu, thus triggering a new cluster known as Sungai Atap.
State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas revealed that the community cluster emerged due to inter-district travel whereby the source of infection was from Sibu District.
“The index case, Case 10,693, is a 36-year-old woman detected from screening at Lanang Health Clinic in Sibu following instruction by her employer.
“The case took the rT-PCR test on March 3 and was found positive on March 5,” he told a press conference on Covid-19 situation update for Sarawak today.
Uggah, who is also Deputy Chief Minister, explained that further investigations and contact tracing, as well as screenings on close contacts, have confirmed 18 more people being infected.
“As of today, a total of 148 individuals have been screened whereby 125 were negative and four more are still waiting for lab test results,” he added.
All 19 cases are isolated in Sarikei Hospital and Quarantine and Low-Risk Treatment Centre (PKRC) Sarikei.
Meanwhile, Sungai Atap Cluster is one of two new clusters declared in Sarawak, which thus pushed the number of active clusters in the State to 34.
The other new cluster was Semuja Immigration Depot Cluster in Serian with 99 positive cases, all involving detained illegal immigrants.
Sarawak reported one Covid-19 fatality today and 303 new cases with Serian topping the list of daily infections with 101 cases followed by Bintulu (57), Sibu (47), Miri (27), Meradong (13), Kapit (10), Julau (9), Kuching and Sarikei (8 each), Sri Aman (6), Tanjung Manis (5), Bukit Mabong (4), Sebauh (2) while Bau, Belaga, Kanowit, Samarahan, Selangau and Subis has one case each.
This thus pushed the state tally of positive cases to 13,413. – DayakDaily
