PUTRAJAYA, May 25 — From now on, the Covid-19 Quarantine and Treatment Centre at the Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang (Maeps) will only receive illegal immigrants who are tested positive, said Senior Minister (security cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.
He said locals would no longer be placed there and those who had been in quarantine at the centre have been transferred to the Sungai Buloh Hospital since yesterday.
Addressing the daily press conference on the conditional movement control order (CMCO) today, Ismail Sabri said he had personally visited the centre this morning and found that the security forces have begun installing barbed wire fencing around the area, and increased their presence there.
He explained that this has to be done because there were possibilities that the illegal immigrants would escape as their travel documents were incomplete.
“Today is the last day for the locals (to be at Maeps) as we don’t want them to be together with the immigrants. As only the immigrants will be there, it is necessary to have the fencing and other measures in place,” he said.
“With Malaysians, it is so much easier as we will be able to locate them through their IC (identity card), home address and family members. However, we have no records of the illegal immigrants, where they live and who their relatives are,” he added.
Maeps, the largest agro park in Asia had been transformed into a quarantine and treatment centre for Covid-19 low-risk cases and is able to accommodate 600 beds.
To date, 207 illegal immigrants tested Covid-19 positive in three Immigration Detention Depot in Bukit Jalil, Semenyih and Sepang, and will be transferred to Maeps.
Elaborating, Ismail Sabri said thorough screenings had been and would continue to be conducted on all detainees, officers and people involved, including the food suppliers.
“Those tested negative will stay (in the depot) and we will soon do a followup screening on them, while the positive cases will be sent directly to Maeps,” he added.
Currently, 4,346 detainees are in the three depots, 1,654 are in Semenyih, Bukit Jalil (1,334) and Sepang (1,358).
Meanwhile, Ismail Sabri advised the public not to be unduly alarmed by the rise in Covid-19 cases among the detainees as they are located at the depots.
“The possibility of the Covid-19 virus spreading outside is almost nil because they are inside (the depots). We screened all of them including the officers, and those tested positive are sent directly to Maeps.
“So, if there is a rise in cases announced by the Health director-general, they are not among Malaysians but the illegal immigrants, who we have placed in the detention depots,” he said.
— Bernama
