5 more recovered workers at Westlite Woodland dorm test positive for Covid-19, bringing total cases to 25
SINGAPORE — Five more migrant workers at the Westlite Woodlands dormitory have tested positive for Covid-19 after recovering from the disease, bringing the total number of infections there detected in the last fortnight to 25.
In its update on the coronavirus situation in Singapore on Tuesday (April 27), the Ministry of Health (MOH) said that it had commenced a special testing operation at the dormitory following the confirmed case of a 35-year-old Bangladeshi man on April 19.
MOH said that it has found 24 recovered workers who tested positive for Covid-19 at the dormitory. The number does not include the Bangladeshi man, his roommate as well as another case that was reported on Monday.
Two of the 24 cases were later found to be negative upon retest, leaving 22 positive cases, five more than the 17 reported by MOH last week.
The ministry said that together with an expert panel which comprises infectious diseases and microbiology experts, they had investigated the cases to assess if they are re-infection cases or past infections who are shedding minute fragments of the virus RNA which are no longer transmissible and infective to others.
Of the 24 recovered cases detected, 11 cases have been assessed to be shedding virus fragments, and five are likely to be cases of Covid-19 re-infection.
“Two more cases have been determined to be negative for Covid-19 upon re-testing, and the remaining six cases are pending assessment by the expert panel,” MOH said.
The ministry added that all five re-infection cases occupied the same room within the dormitory — together with the initial Bangladeshi national and his roommate, both of whom had received the two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.
MOH stressed that there is currently “no evidence of transmission to the rest of the dormitory”.
Amongst the re-infection cases, two had recently arrived from Bangladesh on April 6, MOH noted.
“Our epidemiological investigations found that they were likely to have been infected while overseas, and passed the infection to the others in the room.
“Further epidemiological investigations are ongoing at their workplace,” MOH said.
