ASYMPTOMATIC attendees of the Sri Petaling Mosque tabligh event will also be screened for Covid-19, Health Director-General Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said today.

“We will test all jemaah tabligh attendees even if there are no symptoms,” he said at a press conference in Putrajaya today.

Noor Hisham said the World Health Organisation (WHO’s) guidelines stipulates that screening should only be conducted on those who are experiencing symptoms.

“If there are no symptoms, we will examine them and will not test. (However) Today we have decided to screen them even if there are no symptoms,” he added.

Of the 212 new cases reported today, 123 were linked to the tabligh cluster.

According to the Health Ministry, a total of 14,500 Malaysians and 1,500 foreigners had attended the event.

Noor Hisham said the ministry is also tracing indirect links to the tabligh cluster including people who attended weddings, surau or other mosques.

He was asked if new clusters have emerged, to which he said it is not certain yet, but there are “new links” involving people who had gone to places where tabligh attendees might have also visited.

“There are indirect links and it’s difficult to trace because we don’t know who went to the same wedding, or to the same mosque or surau as the person who went to the tabligh gathering.”

He said 62% of infections, or 940 out of the country’s total of 1,518 positive cases, are from the tabligh cluster. 

Urging families of people who attended the tabligh event to come forward for testing, he said those who tested negative will be placed in quarantine, while positive cases will be treated in hospital. – March 23, 2020.