PETALING JAYA, May 4 — The Selangor government announced today it will provide free mass Covid-19 screenings to all those residing in every constituency as part of the Selangor Public Health Action Plan from May 8 onwards.

Selangor Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari said the statewide initiative, subsidised by the state government and undertaken as part of the state’s Covid-19 Pandemic Mitigation Phase, was aimed at conducting surveillance through active case detection amongst the populace.

He said a contributing factor that led to the rise of Covid-19 cases within Selangor was "silent carriers” who were unaware they carried the virus.

"Selangor has shown a high daily Covid-19 case reports trend over the past few weeks.

"A very worrying factor is when the people of Selangor who are infected with Covid-19 but do not know it, they are termed as silent carriers. These are the asymptomatic and healthy ones.

"These groups are worrisome as they can spread infections amongst high-risks groups,” he said in a statement here.

Earlier today, Selangor recorded the highest number of cases with 675 out of 3,120 new Covid-19 infections nationwide according to the Health Ministry’s latest statistics.

According to Amirudin, the free screening programme will take place from May 8 until June 10 throughout all 56 state constituencies, with daily coverage of two state constituencies.

The first two state constituencies selected for mass screening were Kajang and Semenyih.

"This programme will provide benefits and opportunities to Selangorians with risks, known close contacts with Covid-19 patients, symptomatic and those concerned with their health.

"It is with hope that Selangorians will take proactive steps to get themselves screened according to the dates scheduled and play their role in curbing the spread of Covid-19 within Selangor,” Amirudin added.

The full list of respective constituencies and their scheduled mass screening dates can be obtained here.