KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Penang state in northern Malaysia has banned foreign visitors from seeking medical remedies until new fitness and protection procedures to prevent the coronavirus crisis are completed, the lead minister said Monday.
Authorities tightened movement restrictions on parts of the island over the weekend, as new infections arose after more than 3 months per case.
In a statement, the government said three Indonesian patients had arrived by special flights last Friday to be treated at private hospitals, two victims of cancer and one in need of immediate treatment.
“The state government deeply regrets being informed of the ‘sudden’ arrival of patients,” chief minister Chow Kon Yeow said in pronouncing the ban.
The state didn’t say if all three tested positive for the virus. But the Penang government was informed that the patients had followed all operational procedures, the lead minister said.
The ban will remain until the Ministry of Health completes procedures to treat physical tourism, he added.
AirAsia.com, the virtual platform of cheap airline AirAsia Group Bhd, announced Friday that it had made its first medical charter flight to Penang from the Indonesian city of Medan, with a charter from Jakarta scheduled for next Monday.
The Penang government also ordered all fitness tourism agencies to provide notifications and information.
The Southeast Asian country detected a highly infectious mutation of the virus, it said on Sunday, while the number of cases stood at 9,200.
(Interactive graph that tracks the global coronavirus: open tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in an external browser).
Reporting through Liz Lee; Editing via Clarence Fernandez
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