KUCHING, April 30 — Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) has extended the active case detection (ACD) operations in two residential areas in Samarahan district by another three days, its chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah said today.
He said the health teams have visited 2,288 out of the 5,300 houses to take swabs from the residents of Taman Desa Ilmu and Uni-Garden.
“So, this morning in our meeting, we have decided to extend the ACD operations by another three days,” he said in his daily media briefing.
The operations started from midnight on April 27 and is scheduled to end at midnight tomorrow.
Uggah said so far 124 persons have been screened for Covid-19 infection from 221 who had been called.
“We also know that 97 others who been in close contact with positive cases but have yet to be screened,” he said.
“If we have not taken the step to initiate the operations, we will not be able to know there are 97 persons with close contact with the positive cases, and they are still walking around.”
He said SDMC has also decided that the laboratory tests on the samples taken from the residents be done at the Sarawak General Hospital for faster results, instead of at the National Public Health Laboratory in Sungai Buloh, Selangor.
He said the outcome of the laboratory tests, either negative or positive of Covid-19, will be known in the next few days.
The ACD operations is meant to identify positive cases, close contacts with positive cases, and to carry out the screening process.
Over the last 14 days, 44 positive cases have been recorded from the two residential areas, but with no deaths.
During the period of the ACD operations, the residents from these two housing areas are not allowed to go to other areas and the visitors are barred from entering.
