He said this would take the burden off hospitals dealing with Covid-19 patients.

“We find there is a need to set up field hospitals, like in Tawau and Kelantan … Discussions are in progress so that the defence ministry can build them.

“The existing hospitals, especially their critical and intensive care wards, can then focus on dealing with the increase in Covid-19 cases,” he told a press conference jointly held with Khairy Jamaluddin, the coordinating minister of the national immunisation programme, today.

On additional personnel to deal with Covid-19, Adham said some 8,000 personnel from other ministries had been mobilised since last Jan 11 to help the health ministry.

He said the latest involved 800 personnel who were deployed to Sarawak and Kelantan.

“In Kelantan, staff from the dental department were deployed, apart from trainees and staff from the MOH Training Institute who are also experts in managing Covid-19 cases in critical wards and ICUs.

“Apart from that, MOH has obtained approval to have 11,000 more staff in all disciplines in the ministry,” he added.

On the first case in the country of the Covid-19 variant from India with a double mutation, known as B.1.617.1, Adham said the case was detected following the screening of an Indian national at an international gateway last April 24.

“The Indian national came to our country before we decided to close the entry of flights from that country (India). He has been quarantined for 14 days and we are monitoring the situation,” he added.

He said that to date a total of 48 cases of the South African variant B.1.351 had been found in the country, eight cases of the UK B.1.1.7 variant and two cases of the Nigerian B.1.525 variant.

Meanwhile, he said interstate travel would not be allowed at least until May 17 and that 13 interstate clusters had been detected since last April.