KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 4 — The mission to bring home Malaysians from Wuhan, China in the wake of the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak in the republic was successful with 133 people arrived at KL International Airport (KLIA) early this morning.
The AirAsia special flight involved in the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) mounted by the Malaysian government had ferried home 107 individuals stranded in Hubei province, comprising 88 Malaysians and 19 non-citizens who are their spouses and children.
Also on board the special flight which departed Wuhan Tianhe International Airport were six officials from the Malaysian embassy in Beijing, eight mission officers and 12 flight crew members.
Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said all those from Wuhan were allowed to board the plane after undergoing health screening conducted by the Chinese government.
“Upon arrival at KLIA, they were ferried by bus to the Air Disaster Unit (ADU) at KLIA to underdo the health screening. Of the 107 individuals brought home, two failed the health screening and were taken to Kuala Lumpur Hospital (HKL),” she said in a statement here.
Dr Wan Azizah, who is the chairman of the National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma), said after completing health screening at the ADU, 105 people were taken by bus to the monitoring centre at the Higher Education Leadership Academy (AKEPT) located in Bandar Enstek, Nilai, Negeri Sembilan.
Yesterday afternoon, the special aircraft AK8264 took off from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (klia2) to carry out the HADR mission and also brought along 500,000 pairs of rubber gloves as a contribution to the Chinese government which is battling the spread of coronavirus outbreak.
The deputy prime minister said the initial number registered with the Malaysian Embassy in the republic to return to Malaysia was 141, but 34 could not make it due logistics problems.
“According to Wisma Putra, some Malaysians scheduled to board this flight could not leave Wuhan due to logistics issues.
“The main reason is that they are located outside of Wuhan and have difficulty to get to Wuhan city or to the airport,” she said.
Dr Wan Azizah said all matters on board were handled by the Ministry of Health’s (MoH) medical and health team while the monitoring centre was supervised by the MoH health officers.
She emphasised that during the 14-day quarantine at the centre, contact was limited to health personnel and no outsiders including family members would be allowed into the centre.
“Hence, family members or friends have been urged to understand the situation and to cooperate fully with the implementation of this monitoring period,” she said.
For security purposes, the centre was monitored by the police and health screenings would be conducted twice daily to ensure the quarantined individuals are completely healthy and allowed to leave after the monitoring process was completed.
Dr Wan Azizah said Nadma was responsible for contacting the immediate family to relay information pertaining to the arrival of the individuals involved and on the monitoring process to be adhered to.
“The Malaysian government would like to express sincere thanks to all those involved in ensuring that the humanitarian mission of bringing home Malaysians and their spouses and children is smooth and all is well on our way to Malaysia,” she said. — Bernama
