Over 13,000 of FGV's migrant plantation workers screened for COVID-19

KUALA LUMPUR: FGV Holdings Bhd has provided COVID-19 screening tests for 13,509 migrant plantation workers so far in an effort to screen all such workers employed at its plantations nationwide.

Group chief executive officer Datuk Haris Fadzilah Hassan said this is to ensure that all FGV migrant plantation workers remain healthy and do not become spreading agents of COVID-19.

“It is also in line with the government’s directives which require employers to provide screening tests for all its migrant workers respectively beginning from Feb 2, 2021,” he said in a statement today.

Last month, FGV conducted screening programmes for 1,029 migrant plantation workers in Negeri Sembilan and Pahang, 6,261 workers in Sabah, and 703 workers in Terengganu.

In the first week of February, an additional 1,402 migrant plantation workers in Pahang and 4,114 migrant workers in Sabah were screened.

FGV said the overall screening test results for January are negative, except for 25 workers in Sabah who have gone through the quarantine process. The workers have fully recovered and have been discharged from the quarantine centre in Lahad Datu.

Haris Fadzilah said FGV will continue the screening programme for its migrant plantation workers in other states in the near future and it is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2021.

The plantation group has 26,114 migrant plantation workers -- 15,119 in Peninsular Malaysia, 10,375 in Sabah and 620 in Sarawak.

All FGV migrant plantation workers from Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Philipines, Sri Lanka, India and Myanmar are registered contributors under the Social Security Organisation (SOCSO).

In addition to the screening programme, FGV provides temporary COVID-19 Quarantine and Treatment Centres at its plantation complexes to enable the isolation process for migrant plantation workers who are found positive with mild symptoms.

-- BERNAMA