PUTRAJAYA, June 4 — The Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) will not be deploying any more teams to serve at the Malaysian field hospital in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh during the Covid-19 pandemic period.

Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said this decision was taken as a preventive measure to contain the outbreak.

"Prior to this, we had deployed 56 MAF personnel to serve in Cox Bazar but they were ordered home once Covid-19 began spreading.

"We have no MAF team members at Cox’s Bazar at the moment,” he said at the daily media briefing on the conditional movement control order (CMCO) here today.

The Malaysian field hospital began operations at the end of 2017 to ease the stress of the influx of some 700,000 Rohingya refugees escaping the unrest in northern Rakhine in Myanmar since August the same year.

In another development, Ismail Sabri said the police have opened 572 investigation papers since March 18 on fraudulent facemask sales involving losses amounting to RM5.5 million.

The majority of the scams were through Facebook and WhatsApp, he said.

"Selangor has the highest number of cases with 122, followed by Johor and Penang with 68 each,” he said.

Police have also successfully detained 181 individuals with 53 of them already charged in court, he said.

"The public must be vigilant when opting for online purchases. Avoid suspicious websites and go through reviews and comments for the products. Do not be taken in by cheap offers,” he advised. — Bernama