PUTRAJAYA: The Selayang wholesale market cluster is believed to have stemmed from the Seri Petaling mosque tabligh gathering.
Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the ministry believed there were workers at the wholesale market who had participated in the gathering that was held at the end of February.
"We believe workers at the wholesale market which is now under the Enhanced Movement Control Order (EMCO) had attended the gathering and infected others in the area.
"A total of 74 Covid-19 postive cases were recorded there, and of the number, 13 of them are not from the area. They are traders from other markets who get their supplies at the wholesale market, but now they brought the virus back to their markets," he said at the daily Covid-19 press conference, here, today.
Dr Hisham said one of the traders hailed from Bahau, Negri Sembilan.
"After we detected the said trader was Covid-19 positive, the market was immediately closed down for disinfection, then we conducted tracing on the patient's close contacts.
"We are taking the same action at the Taman Megah, Jalan Othman and Chow Kit wet markets," he said.
He said the Health Ministry was also utilising the same procedure for contact tracing that it had conducted during the first wave of Covid-19 in the country.
"We will also impose EMCO at a locality after we find that area has active cases, and then we test the residents.
"So far, we have conducted 15,000 tests at the wholesale market with 74 positive cases.
"The positive cases are not high for the amount of screenings that we do for persons under investigations and close contacts, where the infection rate is roughly at four per cent. We are still conducting active case detection in the EMCO areas," he said.
He also encouraged those who suspected they have had contacts with Covid-19 positive traders at the market to come forward for screening, particularly those with symptoms.