UiTM Medical Centre aims to increase Covid-19 test capacity

CORONAVIRUS | The UiTM Medical Centre (UiTMMC) in Sungai Buloh might only have a small laboratory, but it is definitely playing a big role in helping the country to face the Covid-19 outbreak.

Assembling a small team of officers and lecturers, the centre is now a part of a joint effort by science facilities nationwide to help the Health Ministry ramp up its capacity to conduct Covid-19 detection tests.

UiTMMC director Dr Sazzli Shahlan Kasim said they assembled a special task force on the Covid-19 pandemic last month, after learning that MOH was roping in the assistance of universities to process Covid-19 test samples, the volume of which has been overwhelming due to the increasing number of cases.

Sazzli said the task force is headed by Dr Ariza Adnan, who is a consultant microbiologist, and consists 30 of the hospital's officers and lecturers who operate the facility from morning to night, testing samples that they receive from the National Public Health Laboratory (MKAK).

He said that currently, their Institute of Medical Molecular Biotechnology laboratory is capable of completing 100 Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests a day.

RT-PCR is a laboratory process that is carried out to detect the presence of Covid-19 antigen via its genetic materials on samples taken using a nasopharyngeal swab.

"For now, our capacity is 100 tests a day. And by next week, we are hoping to be able to increase the capacity to 200 samples daily," said Sazzli when met by reporters at the laboratory yesterday.

UiTMMC had invited a group of journalists to the laboratory for a visit, where a briefing tour was provided at the facility.

Ariza told reporters that UiTMMC previously had no such sub-service offered at the facility, and this was why the institution has to rope in their lecturers to be the manpower for the initiative.

Although Covid-19 is a newly discovered virus, the lecturers are no strangers to RT-PCR tests and they do not need any additional training to conduct the processes, she said.

"This is very unique, where this is not the job scope of the lecturers but they are here nevertheless to help," she added.

According to Ariza, the team members are currently divided into two shifts, from 8am to 2pm and from 2pm to 8pm.

She said that at their current capacity, where certain parts of the processes are done manually, the task force takes between five and six hours to complete the analyses on a batch of 50 samples.

Earlier this month, Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah told the media that MOH has roped in a total of 43 facilities, including laboratories operated by universities as well as those owned by the private sector, to increase the daily capacity of Covid-19 tests.

Currently, the capacity was about 11,500 tests a day, but MOH continues to have an increasing number of pending tests due to the overwhelming volume of samples. This is because the total capacity also includes tests that need to be done on samples taken from in-patients at Covid-19 wards, on top of new cases.

Noor Hisham had said that some of the laboratories have yet to reach their full capability, and the ministry aimed to increase the daily test capacity to 16,500. - Mkini