PUTRAJAYA, June 4 — A holistic approach is needed in order to curb Covid-19 infection among foreign workers, including illegal immigrants.
Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the approach required cooperation from various agencies and parties.
“When we look at foreign workers, we look at it holistically in terms of approach to this issue. We are hoping to look at a multi-agency approach to look into foreign workers (issues on Covid-19).
“(It involves) the whole government and society, then we can address this matter. We also must look into precautionary measures… also important is good personal hygiene,” he said at the daily media briefing on Covid-19 here today.
Dr Noor Hisham said the Health Ministry (MOH) has also discussed the issue of cramped cells at Immigration Detention Depots with the National Security Council (NSC).
On cases spiking among detainees at depots, he said this was due to the second sampling results and those who were tested positive have been isolated.
“This group already have been exposed to positive patients, but they were negative then. So we need to quarantine them…we have already identified them and put them in one block.
“But when we quarantine them for 14 days, we need to take their samples again. The second sampling is the one that is positive because they had already been exposed and had close contact with positive (patients) such as their colleagues and all that,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham denied that stock supply of the antigen rapid test kits procured from South Korea was dwindling, saying there were some 190,000 kits left.
“We have used 8,000 kits for screenings so far, in fact at the ministry, we have 50,000 kits left while the rest have been distributed to Sabah, Sarawak, the land borders in Johor Bahru and Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (klia2),” he said, adding that new procurements will be made should there be a need for more kits.
In another development, Dr Noor Hisham said there has been a decrease in dengue cases recorded for the first five months of this year to 46,938 cases which is 11.7 per cent lower compared to the same period last year.
He said there were 53,187 dengue cases during the same period last year.
According to him, MOH is always monitoring dengue cases for prevention and treatment even though the country is currently facing Covid-19.
“Just because of Covid-19, don’t forget dengue is always there. We have not seen a surge in cases for dengue yet but when we do the action plan will be put in place,” he said.
— Bernama
