KOTA KINABALU, Feb 24 — The remote district of Nabawan, located deep in the interior of Sabah, chalked up its first Covid-19 cluster today. The infection is believed to have spread from a funeral ceremony.

Nabawan, one of the districts which had maintained its status as a green zone the longest, was shy of 96 cases as of last week. Overnight, it has become a red zone with 19 positives to date from a single event.

“This is why we restrict inter-district travel, the virus spreads district to district easily, and this is what we are trying to avoid,” Sabah Covid-19 spokesman Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said today.

The new Sinsingon cluster was detected from a routine screening of three students who were due to enter their boarding school on February 22. They had showed no symptoms of the coronavirus.

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A screening of their family and close contacts resulted in 15 people testing positive, out of 30 people. Altogether, 106 people were screened in this cluster.

The three index cases were believed to have contracted the virus when they attended a funeral of a relative in Kamping Sinsingon, in Sapulut, Nabawan between February 17 and 20.

Nabawan had been a green zone even up to last month. The infectious virus is believed to have made its way there through a fishmonger who had travelled from Kudat.

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“Before that, they were a green zone. But with the fishmonger, the number of cases exploded,” Masidi said.

“Another lesson to take from this is to avoid gatherings, ceremonies and others as per the guidelines from the Health Ministry. Try to avoid as much as possible,” he added.

As of yesterday, Nabawan has chalked up 109 cases of Covid-19. It remains Sabah’s third-lowest numbers in any district after Telupid, which has 98 cases and Tongod, which has just 44 cases.

In contrast, Kota Kinabalu has the highest with 11,979 followed by Tawau with 7,226 and Sandakan with 6,623. Sabah has a total of 52,373 cases of which 105 were detected today.

Sabah will receive its first batch of Covid-19 vaccines tomorrow.