MALAYSIA today reported 36 new Covid-19 cases, the fourth consecutive day of double-digit growth, .
Director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said it was the first time since March 18 that no deaths were reported in 24 hours.
Total cases now stand at 5,425.
He said 98 cases have recovered, taking the number of patients discharged to 3,295.
Noor Hisham said 45 patients are in intensive care, 28 of them on respirators.
The death toll remains at 89.
Dr Noor Hisham said the reduction in fresh cases was a result of proactive action and aggressive contact tracing in the last two weeks.
“But despite the drop, new cases may spike again in the coming two weeks as detection of Covid-19 is ongoing, especially among Malaysians who have returned from overseas. We are still testing in areas under the enhanced movement control order.” – THE MALAYSIAN INSIGHT
Health D-G: Breaking Covid-19 chain may take months, but ‘war’ set to go on until next year
PUTRAJAYA, — Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said today that his ministry hopes Malaysia will reach single-digit new Covid-19 cases next week, but breaking the chain on infection may take between three and six month.
He also said that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has predicted that Malaysia will still be at “war” with Covid-19 even until next year, unless vaccines for the coronavirus is found and made available to the public.
In the meantime, he said the government will continue to monitor, research and try to minimise infections inside the community, such as the influenza-like illnesses (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI), which can be used to plan what needs to be done.
“WHO anticipated that we might have to go to war [against Covid-19) until the next year. The problem is how to plan and strategise until the next year.
“What is important today is we may be able to reduce the numbers of cases, but not end [the infection],” he said in his daily briefing.
Noor Hisham explained that the ILI/SARI based cases in Covid-19 is a good indication on the rate of infection amongst the community and can be used to monitor and plan on the country’s public health strategy.
He said that the Ministry of Health might need to ensure that the people are still following public health advisory even when the movement control order (MCO) ends as long as the vaccine is not found.
“If the ILI and SARI cases keep increasing, it means the virus is still inside the community. Now we see it’s reducing. If it is reducing that means it is a good indication to plan what our action is for the future.
“From the cases that we’ve researched, we need to see what needs to be done after the MCO is ended. Maybe we can see different activities and norms that need to be done as long as there’s no vaccine found,” he said. MALAY MAIL
THE MALAYSIAN INSIGHT / MALAY MAIL
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.