Health DG: Asymptomatic spread quite uncommon for virus, not a good sign

CORONAVIRUS | Health Director-General Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has expressed his concern that the asymptomatic spread of Covid-19 has not been good news thus far.

"A growing body of results shows that people who are asymptomatic appear to have the same viral load as symptomatic cases.

"This means that, whether people have symptoms or not, they carry the same amount of virus inside them.

"This suggests that transmission is possible equally from both asymptomatic patients and noticeably sick patients," he said in a Facebook post.

Noor Hisham said that the asymptomatic spread is quite uncommon for a virus and is not a good sign.

"If you're able to transmit the virus while asymptomatic, it allows for a lot more community spread.

"It seems that Covid-19 is proving much harder to contain," he added.

Thus far, Malaysia has reported a total number of 6,819 cases with 1,356 active cases, 5,351 recoveries and 112 fatalities.

Noor Hisham linked to an article by John Hopkins University which cited the case of Iceland, where a broad testing effort resulted in five percent of the country's population being tested for Covid-19, with a lab study suggesting that as many as 50 percent of people who have the disease showed no symptoms.

The article quoted Gigi Gronvall, an immunologist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who predicted: "An altered way of life for all of us until we can get to full coverage from a vaccine."

Yesterday, Noor Hisham warned that Malaysia may need to lead in societal, behavioural changes to learn how to live with Covid-19 for a long, long time - a period of even up to five years.

“We need to adapt to the new norms to survive and comply with the SOP (standard operating procedure). The WHO announced yesterday it might be a long haul of five years – an unprecedented challenge in difficult times,” he said on Twitter.

 - Mkini