SINGAPORE - All staff and residents at a Ren Ci nursing home who were near a Covid-19 patient have tested negative so far.

They were swabbed after a 39-year-old nurse at Ren Ci @ Ang Mo Kio was confirmed to have the virus and was linked to the Changi Airport cluster on Sunday (May 16). He is a household contact of a sales representative who had visited Changi Airport Terminal 3 on May 4.

The nursing home will carry out further testing where necessary, said Ren Ci in response to queries from The Straits Times.

It added that the nurse was last at work on May 15.

"After his shift ended, he visited a general practitioner as he started to feel unwell," the organisation said.

He was diagnosed with Covid-19 on Sunday after being swabbed and is currently warded at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital.

Upon notification of the man's positive test result, the nursing home said it took immediate action to stop possible spread and started contact tracing.

Through split zone segregation, it identified staff and residents in the zone where the Covid-19 patient had been in, and worked with the Health Ministry, as well as the Agency for Integrated Care, to test them.

All visitations to the affected zone have been stopped until further notice, the organisation said.

The nursing home has since deep cleaned and disinfected the affected areas and will be increasing cleaning frequency.

Staff in the affected zone will also step up usage of personal protective equipment.

Ren Ci's clinical director David Ng said: "Amongst the direct care staff working in the affected work zone, 94 per cent of them have received their full Covid-19 vaccination.

"With split zones already in place, together with vaccinations, strict infection prevention and control, close surveillance swabs during this period and ongoing observation of precautionary measures in line with prevailing advisories, we hope to prevent any further spread."

Additional reporting by Ng Wei Kai