IPOH, October 16 — Taiping has become the first district in Perak to be declared a red zone in the recovery movement control order (RMCO) phase after 77 Covid-19 infections were detected in the last 14 days.
The State Health Department said that 48 new Covid-19 positive cases were reported in the district as of October 15.
“The 48 cases, which include male prisoners aged between 35 and 65, are housed in a detention centre in Larut Matang Selama.
“The prisoners were screened on October 3 as they were all close contacts of a Covid-19 patient, who had history of travelling to Alor Setar Prison on September 27 and 28.
“However, the first Polymerase Chain Reaction test (PCR) was negative. On October 10, there were reports of fever symptoms and they were treated at the detention centre clinic.
“Following the incident, a second test was conducted on October 13 and the results from a real-time Reverse Transcription- Polymerase Chain Reaction test (RT-PCR) obtained the next day showed they were positive for Covid-19,” it said in a statement.
However, the Health Department stressed that the 48 patients had not leave the detention centre for the past 14 days.
Another four cases, two individuals from Hulu Perak and another two from Hilir Perak, were local transmission as well.
“Case 49 involves a 56-year-old woman from Hilir Perak, who contracted the virus during a family gathering and case 50 involves a 66-year-old woman from Hilir Perak, who had contacts with cluster Simera Selangor.
“Meanwhile, cases 51 and 52 involve two men aged 22 and 23 from Hulu Perak who contracted the virus when attending a meeting. All the cases involve Malaysians,” it said.
The Health Department said that all the 52 cases were isolated and the authorities are carrying out contact tracing.
Yesterday, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah announced Bah Pengkalan as the new Covid-19 cluster in Perak, with the index case patient having travelled recently to Sabah.
