KOTA KINABALU, July 2 — A 26-year-old housewife has been found to have triggered a new COVID-19 cluster in Sabah today, namely the Tanjung Pitas Cluster, involving a fishing community in the Mapan-Mapan Mukim in the Pitas district.
Sabah Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun said the cluster recorded 43 cumulative cases and was detected after the index case, who is from Kampung Naruntung, tested positive for COVID-19 on June 27.
“Based on the investigation, there are two possibilities of transmission, either the movements of the village residents to Pulau Banggi, Kudat throughout May and June or the movements of in Kampung Naruntung fishmongers who sold fish in the Pitas and Kota Marudu areas,” he said in a statement tonight.
Masidi, who is also Sabah COVID-19 spokesman, said that following the case, the Pitas District Health Office detected a further 20 positive cases through close contact screening.
He said the number included three positive cases from the Pitas Maternal and Child Health Clinic laboratory following the contact screening of a household on June 28 and one of them was the index case’s husband, who worked as a fisherman and sold fish in Kampung Taritipan Kota Marudu.
He said they also detected a case through community screening in Kampung Naruntung on June 29 and 16 positive cases among the villagers on June 30.
Meanwhile, Sabah recorded 230 new cases today, bringing the cumulative number of cases to 69,907 while five fatalities were reported – two in Lahad Datu and one each in Kunak, Sandakan and Kudat.
