Covid-19: Cluster linked to Kajang nursing home among 13 new clusters

PUTRAJAYA: The Health Ministry has detected 13 new Covid-19 clusters, taking the total number of active clusters up to 489 nationwide.

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said of the 13 new clusters, 10 are linked to outbreaks in workplaces.

One of them is the Jalan Senai Utama cluster in Johor, which has 131 confirmed cases.

Dr Noor Hisham said the positive cases were discovered from a targeted screening exercise conducted on 414 individuals linked to a factory in Mukim Senai, Kulai.

The ministry also detected a new cluster of 24 cases linked to a nursing home in Kajang, Selangor.

Named the "Jalan Cheras cluster", the outbreak is traced to a 39-year-old man who developed symptoms on Feb 6 and tested positive on Feb 15.

An outbreak at a detention centre in Tapah, Perak, with 64 confirmed cases was also detected by the ministry.

The index case is a 50-year-old woman who developed symptoms and tested positive on Feb 9.

A cluster named "Jalan Tropicana" was also detected by the ministry, and is linked to a supermarket in Jalan Mutiara Tropicana in Petaling Jaya.

The workers of the supermarket had undergone targeted screening exercise, with 25 positive cases found out of 73 who were tested.

Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham said the ministry has declared eight clusters in the country as closed, after no new cases were recorded over 28 days.

This included the Bah Manggis cluster which is linked to interstate travel, and was officially classified as a cluster on Oct 10.

A total of 417 cases were uncovered from this cluster, with infections spread across Sabah (Tawau), Selangor (Kuala Langat, Klang, Gombak, Sepang and Kuala Selangor) and Negri Sembilan (Seremban and Port Dickson).

No deaths were recorded from this cluster.