COVID-19:81 quarantined people who returned from Italy allowed to go home

A total of 81 people comprising Malaysians and their families, as well as six non-Malaysians, who arrived from Italy on March 26 were today allowed to go home after undergoing 14 days of quarantine at the Higher Education Leadership Academy (AKEPT) in Bandar Enstek here.

They comprised 75 Malaysians and six Italians who were allowed to leave at 8 a.m., and were fetched by family members, while some left in a van and car provided by the management of the quarantine centre.

Of these, 39 were men and 42 were women.

Also allowed to leave were five Health Ministry staff, 22 AirAsia crew, one Foreign Ministry official and another from the National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA).

According to a NADMA representative, eight people who were allowed to go home in the van and car were sent to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and KLIA 2 while the rest were fetched by family members who had been given movement permits.

These 81 people were repatriated from Italy through the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) mission on a special AirAsia aircraft which arrived at KLIA at 10.06 a.m. on March 26 following the outbreak of COVID-19 there.

This was the fourth successful repatriation mission after the ones which brought back 133 and 66 Malaysians stranded in Wuhan, China, on Feb 4 and 26, followed by a HADR mission from Tehran, Iran, with 55 people on March 22.

At present, there are still 30 Malaysians at the AKEPT quarantine centre, comprising 15 people who arrived from Indonesia, 14 from Spain and one from United Kingdom, who will end their quarantine process on April 17 after they were placed in the centre on April 2.

-- BERNAMA