Tabligh cluster Covid-19 outbreak may have been imported - Health DG

CORONAVIRUS | The Covid-19 outbreak amongst the tabligh gathering cluster may have been imported from abroad, said Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

“The tabligh gathering (at Sri Petaling mosque) involved 25 countries and we understand that... there were 695 participants from Indonesia, so we are worried that there is a possibility that the spread of the Covid-19 (amongst the tabligh participants) may have been imported from overseas,” Hisham said in a press conference in Putrajaya today.

He said the ministry was only made aware that there was a positive case of Covid-19 on March 9 when Hisham’s Brunei counterpart informed him about it.

“We were only informed by Brunei on March 9 and then we immediately took action and then we found many were positive,” he said.

So far, he said, the ministry has tracked down 11,000 out of 14,500 of local participants of the tabligh and sampled almost 6,700 of them.

“And out of that, the positive cases are only 743, which means almost one out of every 10 cases are confirmed.

“We are concerned because the spread may be among the members so we have engaged with the leaders of the tabligh gathering.

“I personally engaged with them, we tried to convince them, explain to them the issues and challenges and therefore have full cooperation with them and hopefully they are willing to step forward.

“This is not to stigmatise the tabligh gathering group, but this is for health issues (and) we need to have their collaboration to come forward and then we can actually do the necessary testing,” Noor Hisham said.

The tabligh gathering committee had yesterday claimed the total participants at the gathering was only 12,000 and not 16,000 as earlier mentioned, with 14,500 local and 1,500 foreign participants.

But Hisham said he was informed in his discussion with the tabligh gathering committee that there were around 14,500 local participants.

As such, he said, the ministry’s target is still to screen 14,500 local participants of the gathering.

The Health Ministry today announced two new deaths related to Covid-19, bringing the total deaths in Malaysia to 10.

There were also 123 new positive cases of Covid-19 as of 12pm today. There are now a total of 1,306 cases in the country.- Mkini