KUALA LUMPUR, May 19 — The Ministry of Health (MOH) said today it is in the midst of screening migrants that were held in detention centres since before the movement control order (MCO) was enforced.

Its director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said this was due to a Myanmar national under such condition who tested positive for Covid-19.

"We have a report that one case was of a Myanmar national who was detained pre-MCO.

"Out of 437 whom were detained, one was tested positive. This batch of detainees were not screened earlier and we will be screening the remaining 436 immigrants,” he said during MOH’s daily briefing on Covid-19.

Dr Noor Hisham was responding to questions pertaining to risk of infection at detention centres. 

He added that foreign nationals including those from Myanmar who were deported were detained before the MCO was enforced.

This comes as Myanmar-based press The Irrawaddy reported yesterday that five new Covid-19 cases were detected there among its nationals who recently returned from Malaysia.

The five were among six new Covid-19 cases reported in Myanmar yesterday.

On May 12, nearly 400 Myanmar nationals were deported from Malaysia after being detained at 11 immigration detention centres across the country, it reported.

The Immigration Department had in recent weeks raided several MCO areas for undocumented migrants before detaining them, despite the Health Ministry previously vowed for migrants and refugees to not worry about their status when coming forward for Covid-19 testing.