PETALING JAYA: The occasional spike in the number of patients who test positive for Covid-19 has been attributed to the active case detection activities conducted by the Health Ministry at areas under Enhanced Movement Control Order (EMCO).
Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said in areas under EMCO, such as the two kampungs in Simpang Renggam, the 7 kampungs in Hulu Langat and Menara City One in Kuala Lumpur, they have tested everyone in that vicinity.
“We found that in Hulu Langat, we have picked up 41 tahfiz students in that area that were detected as positive. If there is a spike in Covid-19 cases in that one particular area, we have to test the whole community as there may be more who are positive that was not untested,“ he said at a press conference today.
He also said there are 43 labs so far in Malaysia, with one lab testing 2000 to 3000 samples a day.
“We are hoping to reach a testing capacity of testing 16,500 samples a day,“ he said.
When asked on whether the testing numbers are adequate, Noor Hisham said they have so far been following the benchmark as required by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in terms of conducting tests for communities in Malaysia.
“When we do a test in one community and if there is a spike of Covid-19 positive cases there, it is a sign that there are many in the community who are positive but untested, so we will try to take as many swab as possible in that concentrated area,“ he said.
He added that it is not possible to test all 30 million Malaysians, but going by the current rise in cases, the numbers are still within the benchmark of WHO.
