KUALA LUMPUR: Sentosa Hospital, a health facility located on the outskirt of Sarawak state capital of Kuching which has become a centre of a Covid-19 cluster, has been closed to the public.
Doctors, nurses and other staff at the hospital had been instructed to observe quarantine at the hospital and are not allowed to return home.
The matter was confirmed Sarawak Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Douglas Uggah Embas, who is also State Disaster Management Committee chairman yesterday.
Uggah said the order was enforced after another eight staff at the hospital tested positive for the virus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases related to the cluster to 16.
"We have stopped the members of the public from going there.
"And as a safety measures, doctors who treated patients there, are not allowed to go home.
"They had to stay (quarantined) at the hospital," said Uggah during the press conference, which was broadcast live via Unit Komunikasi Awam Sarawak or UKAS's (Sarawak Public Communication Unit) Facebook account.
Pressed further if the quarantine also applies to nurses and other staff at the hospital, Uggah replied: "Yes. Quarantined."
Earlier, Uggah said to date, a total of 643 people related to the cluster had been screened for Covid-19 using the Real-Time Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (rRT-PCR) technique.
"Of the total, 16 or 2.49 per cent of them were tested positive for virus. They had been admitted to Sarawak General Hospital for treatment.
"In addition, all of their close contacts had been ordered to undergo quarantine for 14 days," he said.