Labour supply chain likely cause for super-spreader cluster, says Dzulkefly

 

Former health minister Dzulkefly Ahmad believes that the spread of the Seruling cluster across several districts and states is likely due to the movement of foreign workers among various companies in Malaysia.

“Perhaps the most logical reason is that this is due to the supply chain of foreign workers managed by vendors.

“The spread is reflective of the movement of these foreign workers as per the requirement of their factories or even work or construction sites and also indicative of their common dormitories site or one that they frequent to meet friends.

“The transmission of viruses follows suit the movement of these foreign workers as they are transported according to the needs of the employers,” Dzulkefly opined when contacted by Malaysiakini yesterday.

It is also difficult to determine whether the index case in the Seruling cluster started among the foreign workers, he said.

“The opposite might just be as correct; that the infection was introduced into these foreign workers’ hostel by a local Malaysian who might have been their supervisor,” he said.

He added that confined spaces like the foreign workers’ dormitories are “incubators” for super-spreader clusters such as the Seruling cluster.

“You need to introduce only one infection into such a densely packed space before it lights up into a big outbreak,” said Dzulkefly, who is also heading the Selangor Task Force Covid-19 (STFC).

However, he clarified that STFC does not have access to granular data or statistics related to the Seruling cluster to fully examine how the virus is being spread.

Two possible solutions

Meanwhile, Dzulkefly said there are two ways to mitigate the risks of these densely packed dormitories.

One is to manage the housing condition, he said, while the second method is through the STFC’s Poise programme, which stands for ‘Preventing Outbreaks on Ignition Sites’.

“STFC’s approach is unique in that way. We take a problem and turn it into an opportunity.

“Remember when early in the pandemic we were fearful that restaurants and shops could spread disease? What STFC did was to create Selangkah and turn the ‘feared restaurants and shops’ into an opportunity of monitoring infection spread.

“We are doing the same now, to turn the ‘feared foreign workers’ into an opportunity of monitoring infection spread within the larger community through Poise,” Dzulkefly explained.

The Seruling cluster had recorded a spike in Covid-19 cases yesterday, accounting for 843 of the 1,428 new cases in Selangor.

The cluster is mostly confined to the Kapar and Klang districts but has spread to five others as well.

The cluster is believed to be linked to at least one factory in the Jalan Seruling vicinity in Taman Klang Jaya, neighbouring Taman Bukit Tinggi. - Mkini