COVID-19: Muhyiddin inspects preparations to send critical supplies to Sabah, Sarawak

SUBANG: Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin today inspected preparations at the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) air base here for sending critical supplies to Sabah and Sarawak to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

Muhyiddin was received by Air Force chief Jen Tan Sri Ackbal Abdul Samad when he arrived at the air base at 8.15 am.

The prime minister was accompanied by Defence Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Health Minister Datuk Seri Adham Baba.

Muhyiddin attended a short briefing by Ackbal on the deployment of RMAF aircraft before checking out the process of loading the supplies into an A400M aircraft.

The A400M aircraft was used to send 13 tonnes of goods and equipment from the Health Ministry (MOH), Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities, Defence Ministry, Yayasan Amal Malaysia and Sunway Healthcare.

The supplies included face masks, personal protective equipment (PPE), face shields, coveralls/jumpsuits, ward screens, procedure trolleys, gowns/shoe covers, biological safety cabinets, laboratory chairs, red cells and platelets, ventilators, rubber gloves, hand sanitisers, al-Quran, doa Darussyifa and clothes.

The aircraft departed at about 10 am on a 10-hour flight which will take it to Kuching, Sarawak, and Tawau and Kota Kinabalu in Sabah.

During the 30-minute inspection, Muhyiddin expressed his gratitude to personnel of RMAF and other frontline agencies for their hard work in helping to contain the pandemic.

Earlier, a C-130H aircraft carrying five tonnes of COVID-19 supplies had left for Kota Kinabalu, Sabah and Labuan at 7 am.

Between March 22 and Oct 27, RMAF had made 17 flights to ferry 433.89 tonnes of COVID-19 goods and equipment to Sabah and Sarawak.

They included PPE, face masks, gloves, hand sanitisers as well as equipment for the Armed Forces field hospital and government hospitals.

Sabah is the hardest hit state in the third wave of COVID-19 in Malaysia, as the state recorded 352 new cases yesterday for a total of 14,053 cases so far.

-- BERNAMA