A NINE-YEAR-OLD girl has been identified as the cause of the spread of Covid-19 infection at a longhouse in Bintulu.

The girl and her parents had on April 17 visited the longhouse at Mile 25 of the Miri-Bintulu stretch of the Pan Borneo highway.

As a result, tests were ordered for 101 people, 94 of whom were found to be infected.

The state disaster management committee, in its daily update on the epidemic in Sarawak, said the girl was already showing symptoms of infection when she visited the longhouse.

She underwent a test at a private hospital on April 22 and the results confirmed she had the virus.
 
The Batu 25 cluster is one of four new clusters reported in the state today. – Three of them were at longhouses and one was at a primary school.

In the Sg Mas longhouse outbreak in Sebauh district, 52 people were infected by the index case who tested positive for the virus at a private hospital .

At the Sg Nirai longhouse in Selangau, 41 cases were detected after a 25 year-old resident, who is pregnant, was tested after complaining of symptoms at the local health clinic on April 22.

The disaster committee said she had complained of feeling ill since April 11 but she had not ventured beyond the vicinity of the longhouse during the period she felt sick.

In the outbreak at the Long Jegan primary school in Beluru, 57 were infected. The index case was a 25 year-old male teacher.

Sarawak reported 445 new cases today, 60% of them in five districts in the northern half of the state.

The five districts are Sibu, which contributed 98 new cases, Beluru (51), Miri (41), Mukah (40) and Selangau (37).

Elsewhere Bintulu reported 31 new cases, Kuching (26), Samarahan (22), Serian (20), Julau and Kanowit (12 each), Subis (11), Limbang (10), Tebedu (8), Kapit (6), Meradong (4), Song and Tatau (3 each), Belaga, Bau and Bukit Mabong (2 each), and Saratok, Sebauh, Asajaya and Betong (1 each).

Two people died of the coronavirus today. Both the victims in their 70s. – May 1, 2021.