MORE than 25% of the Covid-19 cases reported in the past 24 hours came from the three prison clusters in the northern region, said Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

He said 160 new cases were reported in the Remand cluster and 26 cases in the Seberang Perai cluster, both of which are in Penang, while the Tembok cluster in Kedah recorded 38 new cases.

“Today’s number is relatively high with most cases coming from Sabah.

“But if we look at the three prisons alone, a total of 224 or 25.8% of today’s cases were reported here,” Noor Hisham said in a virtual presser today.

In the past 24 hours, Malaysia reported a record 869 infections with four deaths.

In the Remand cluster, a total of 2,914 individuals have been screened and a total of 377 cases have been reported. 376 are still active cases.

For the Tembok cluster, a total of 6,977 individuals have been screened with 1,563 testing positive. Out of them, 1,076 cases are still active and seven admitted in the intensive care unit (ICU).

In the Seberang Perai cluster, 54 individuals have tested positive for the virus from 625 screened. All of the cases are still active.

The D-G said that the ministry would need to review the standard operating procedures (SOPs) in the prison and that they would need to conduct mass screening in these places.

“What is certain is that they (prisoners) definitely need to be protected and one way for us to ensure that is to conduct large-scale screenings.

“We have to conduct screenings not only in prisons but also in detention depots and even in police lockups.

This matter has been discussed with the prison and we will increase public health awareness activities in prisons,” he said. – October 17, 2020.