A SARAWAKIAN who was in Makassar, Sulawesi, last month for an international tabligh gathering tested positive for Covid-19 upon his return to Malaysia, said James Masing today.

The deputy chief minister said the man, who re-entered the country via Tawau, Sabah, from the Indonesian island of Nunukan on March 29, was screened by health authorities during his mandatory 14-day quarantine at the Balung teachers’ training institute.

The patient is currently warded at Tawau Hospital.

The border with Indonesia is closed, but the man was given “special permission” to enter Sabah by the state government.

He took the same route as his March 12 outbound journey, entering Sabah by going through the immigration, customs, quarantine and security (ICQS) post in Merapok, Lawas, and then travelling by road to Tawau and taking a ferry to Nunukan.

Masing, who chairs the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee’s security sub-committee, said three other men who went to Indonesia for the tabligh event returned via the ICQS post in Tebedu, about 60km from Kuching, on April 7.

They were immediately taken to the quarantine centre at the Sarawak Public Health College in Kota Sentosa, where they were kept in isolation until Friday. Swab tests conducted on the trio returned negative for the coronavirus.

Masing had feared that the four men would try to sneak back into the state to avoid quarantine. He sought the military’s help to monitor “jalan tikus” (illegal lanes) on the Sarawak-Kalimantan border, and placed border authorities on high alert.

He had said if the men snuck back in, skipping the Covid-19 screening process, they would be worse than terrorists.

More than 8,000 Muslims, including about 100 from Malaysia, were in Makassar’s Gowa for the March 19 tabligh gathering, but Indonesia cancelled it at the last minute over coronavirus fears. – April 29, 2020.