The Ministry of Health (MOH) has conducted and completed a testing exercise for staff working at Jewel Changi Airport, and Changi Airport Terminal 3 (T3) from 31 December 2020 as a precautionary measure after three individuals had previously tested positive for the more infectious B117 variant of the coronavirus that was first detected in the UK.
Epidemiological investigations had revealed that two of the three cases visited Jewel Changi Airport on Dec 31 last year while the third case was at T3 on the same day.
The three cases comprised a South Korean work permit holder and a Singaporean couple. The couple, both aged 39, had visited Jewel Changi Airport on Dec 31 while the South Korean man, aged 24, visited T3 on the same day.
According to reports on Channel News Asia and as of 26 Jan, five of the 25 cases of the British B117 variant were community infections while the remaining 20 were imported from Europe.
In addition, the MOH has said that a further two imported cases from Europe have also now tested “preliminarily positive and are pending confirmatory results”.
The B117 Sars-CoV-2 variant is one of a few mutated strains of the coronavirus and has caused some panic globally as some scientists have said that this strain was potentially more contagious.
