Covid-19: New cluster identified at Rembau factory as 53 test positive

PETALING JAYA: Fifty-three foreign workers have tested positive for Covid-19 at a factory in Pedas, Rembau, a cluster that the Health Ministry discovered about a week ago.

Of the number, 25 were Nepalese, 18 were Bangladeshi, eight were Indonesian and two were from Myanmar, said Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

Also testing positive were seven locals, with a cumulative number of cases of 60.

Dr Hisham said a total of 786 people comprising workers and their families had been screened for the disease, out of which 60 tested positive, 286 were negative, and 440 still waiting for their results.

He added that the disease was first detected when an employee of the factory was sick and had fever, cough, cold, breathlessness and headache on April 5.

This employee received treatment at a health clinic, where screening for the disease was conducted on April 10, with his result being confirmed positive two days later.

The spotlight lately has been on foreign workers, with a few clusters of them identified.

The clusters include a construction site in Ampang and at a mall in Cheras.

Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced recently that all foreign workers would have to undergo Covid-19 testing, with those in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur being first to undergo screening.

There are an estimated 2.3 million documented foreign workers in the country, with the number of undocumented believed to be roughly the same.