With new data, Malaysia nearly on par with S Korea on Covid-19 testing

CORONAVIRUS | South Korea’s aggressive approach to Covid-19 testing has earned the country praises and has often been cited as a model of how testing should be done.

With a new reporting system in place, Malaysia now finds itself nearly on par with South Korea on several key metrics on Covid-19 testing.

As at noon yesterday, the Health Ministry said Malaysia has concluded 424,306 tests, of which 6,855 (1.62 percent) were positive and 417,451 (98.38 percent) were negative.

Considering Malaysia’s population of 32.73 million including non-citizens, this means 13.0 in 1,000 people have been tested for Covid-19, of which 0.21 in 1,000 people tested positive.

This means that it takes as many as 61.90 tests to find just one Covid-19 case. This could suggest that the disease is rare in the population, or the wrong segment of the population is being targeted for testing.

The figure was hovering around one case being found for every 10 tests in late-March, according to data compiled by the website Our World in Data, which barely meets the World Health Organisation’s indicator for adequate testing.

At the time, Malaysia was beginning its movement control order in the face of surging Covid-19 cases.

The new figure on the number of tests performed came after the Health Ministry had set up a centralised database in April to streamline the reporting to Covid-19 test data from disparate laboratories.

The new data was incorporated into the ministry’s daily reporting yesterday, causing the reported number of people tested to shoot up from 297,342 on the day before to 424,306.

Previously, test facilities run by universities, the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry, military hospitals and private labs were not reporting test data in a uniformed way, although they are required by law to report any positive results from Covid-19 tests to the Health Ministry.

The new data comes as many employers require their workers to undergo Covid-19 tests before returning to work. The tests are not compulsory except for migrant workers but are provided free for Socso contributors.

Meanwhile, South Korea had also faced a surge in cases in March, although it largely managed to rein it under control.

It has performed more tests than Malaysia, but also has a larger population of 51.78 million people as well as a larger outbreak.

According to the Korea Centres for Disease Control, the country has concluded 722,302 tests including at private laboratories, of which 11,037 (1.53 percent) returned a positive result.

Assuming that each person is only tested once, this would mean South Korea has tested 13.95 in every 1,000 people, compared to Malaysia’s 13.00 in 1,000.

It has taken South Korea 65.44 tests to find each Covid-19 case, compared to Malaysia’s 61.90.

However, these figures do not mean either Malaysia or South Korea are global leaders in testing.

In terms of test coverage, Iceland has tested 162.89 samples for every 1,000 people, according to the latest available data compiled by Our World in Data, while has tested 38.33 people in every thousand.

In terms of the number of tests to find a case, meanwhile, New Zealand has performed 182.7 tests for each case it found, while Vietnam performed 966.7 tests for every case found.

Nevertheless, the website cautioned that the data may not be directly comparable due to different reporting standards used in different countries, such as whether the figures on the number of people tested or the number of tests performed.

For Vietnam, the data is only available up to April 29, while other data on the website is relatively recent.

For comparison, the US has performed 30.14 tests per 1,000 people, but due to the large outbreak it is facing, it is finding a case for every 7.5 tests it performs – a low figure that suggests the country is under-testing its population despite its test coverage being higher than many other countries.

In the UK, the country has performed 23.48 tests per 1,000 and is finding a Covid-19 case for every 9.7 tests performed.

The Imperial College London’s MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis estimates that the US is only reporting 22.1 percent of the actual number of cases, while the UK is reporting 13.1 percent.

The estimates are derived from the number of Covid-19-related deaths reported in the two countries, but it said these figures are likely underestimated.

It does not have a current estimate for Malaysia, since Malaysia does not meet its definition of a country with active Covid-19 transmission. - Mkini