KUALA LUMPUR: All 164 crew on board the Royal Malaysian Navy’s (RMN) frigate KD Lekiu that arrived from Busan, South Korea, have been declared free of Covid-19.
The RMN’s Western Fleet Command Headquarters said in a statement that none of the vessel’s crew showed any symptoms for the virus when they arrived at the RMN’s jetty in Kota Kinabalu, yesterday.
“All crew are in good health. They underwent health screening and the result showed negative for Covid-19.
“They will proceed to sail with the vessel to its home base in Lumut, Perak,” it said, adding KD Lekiu was expected to arrive there on Monday.
However, as a precautionary measure, the crew will be subject to a second health screening upon arrival at the Lumut base.
“They will be quarantined on board the vessel pending the outcome of the second medical examination in Lumut,” said the statement.
As a proactive measure and to ensure their safety, the RMN had arranged for the crew’s blood samples to be taken by medical personnel from the Kota Kinabalu region’s Armed Forces Hospital, with Health Ministry’s assistance.
All the samples were sent to Queen Elizabeth Hospital for analysis, which took between four to 12 hours.
KD Lekiu had returned from a 16-day trip to the Samsung Heavy Industries jetty in Geoje-Do, Busan where it had earlier escorted a Petronas Floating Liquefied Natural Gas 2 tanker.
It had earlier departed Kota Kinabalu on Feb 5 and arrived at Busan on Feb 12.
KD Lekiu then left Busan on Feb 18 and returned to Kota Kinabalu for refueling and replenishment of supplies, enroute to the RMN base in Lumut, Perak.
South Korea have reported 196 new cases of Covid-19 bringing the total cases in the country to 6,284 so far.
Seven deaths were also reported today, bringing the tally to 42.
KD Lekiu is the second RMN vessel to have been screened for Covid-19.
On Jan 30, 57 RMN personnel involved in the construction and training for the second littoral mission ship (LMS) KD Sundang, were also later cleared of the virus.
The 57 include 12 who were the forward batch sent to monitor the construction of the vessel in Wuhan, China - the epicentre of the outbreak - since July 6, 2017.
The second batch of 45 personnel were sent to Qidong, Shanghai, on Nov 5 last year, for familiarisation training and to sail Sundang to its home base in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, by the middle of April.
However, 42 of the total 57 personnel had returned home for the Chinese New Year holidays on Jan 17, while the balance 15 remained in Qidong.