MOH fears Covid-19 spike as infectivity remains at 'critical' level

COVID-19 | The Health Ministry today warned that the novel coronavirus pandemic in the country may spike again, after it recorded a high rate of infectivity over the past several days.

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah told a presser that the country's disease's reproduction number (R₀) had increased to 2.34 yesterday (Wednesday).

He said the R-naught figure considered as critical by MOH is 1.6 and above.

"Yesterday, we were informed that the R-naught has increased to 2.34.

"Today it has gone down to 1.78. But this is still considered as high.

"What is important now is that we must increase our preventive measures to ensure that we can control this pandemic," he said at the press conference in Putrajaya this evening.

This R-naught figure is used by epidemiologists to describe how infectious a disease is. A rate above one meant that its infectivity was increasing.

The health authority fears that if the R-naught figure continues to be above the critical level for a week or more, it could result in a sudden jump in the number of new cases.

"The situation now is very critical for MOH. We only have a small chance to control the spread of Covid-19.

"This spread now is like ember (bara api), where we can still control. But, if it grows into a blaze, then it would be hard for MOH to take action and conduct public health intervention."

For example, he said, it would be impossible for the authorities to carry out contact tracing if the number of daily cases spikes to 20,000 a day.

As of noon today, MOH recorded 45 new positive cases in the past 24 hours, including 44 that were locally transmitted.

Meanwhile, asked about long-term effects on former Covid-19 patients, Noor Hisham said they are still monitoring the situation.

So far, MOH had not found long-term effects in its former patients, like those had been reported overseas.

According to him, among the effects that they fear is pulmonary fibrosis, where patients developed scar on their lungs after suffering from pneumonia caused by the coronavirus.

This can affect the patient's ability to breath and lead to complications.

"We are also monitoring other complications, like blood clotting inside blood vessels. This blood clot can cause a heart attack if it occurs at the heart, or stroke if it occurs in the brain.

"There were also recent cases overseas where (former patients) had a blood clot at the retina arteries, and affected their eyesight," he said.

According to Noor Hisham, they are also monitoring the antibody responses of former patients. - Mkini