THE Immigration Department’s detention depot for illegal immigrants at Semuja in Serian, about 58km from Kuching, had been hit by another Covid-19 outbreak.

Seventy-one detainees – Pakistan, Indonesian, Bangladesh, Indian and Myanmar nationals – awaiting deportation to their respective countries, had tested positive for the virus, the state disaster management committee said today.

These detainees were only transferred to the depot after completing their jail sentence in the Sri Aman and Sibu prisons.

The first time the depot was hit by the infection was on May 8 when an Indonesian detainee, who was not screened for the virus on admission, spread infected 441 other detainees in the overcrowded depot.

The outbreak forced the state to spend millions of ringgit to solve the problem of overcrowding at the federal detention facility.

It was declared safe when no new infection was detected in a space of 28 days.

That, however, was short-lived.

The disaster committee said the source of the latest outbreak was a group of six Pakistanis who were slated for repatriation on Thursday.

They infected the Indonesian, Bangladesh, Indian and Myanmar detainees in the detention and isolation block where they were all placed before they are admitted to the main detention block – if they passed the two Covid-19 tests within 14 days.

The disaster committee said the Indonesian, Bangladeshi, Indian and Myanmar detainees had been discounted as the source of the outbreak as they have taken the two mandatory tests for the virus at the prisons they were detained before they were sent to the depot.

All of them had tested negative.

The Semuja cluster is one of four new clusters reported in Sarawak today.

The other three are the Jalan Haji Taha cluster in Kuching, Pagar Tebedu in the border town of the same name and Cluster 35 in Bintulu.

Sarawak reported 361 new cases today, a slight drop from the 440 cases reported yesterday.

There was also one death reported – a 62-year-old woman in Kapit. – July 3, 2021.