MOH beefs up testing capacity, ventilators as Sabah Covid-19 cases surge

COVID-19 | The Health Ministry is shoring up its preparations in Sabah as the state continues to experience a surge in Covid-19 cases.

Among others, it has roped in the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) to fly in additional personal protection equipment (PPE) to Sabah and ramped up testing capacity in the state.

In a statement today, the ministry’s director-general, Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the state’s capacity to conduct reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests has been increased from 400 tests per day in March to 2,500 tests per day as of today.

The bulk of the tests would be conducted at the Kota Kinabalu Public Health Laboratory with up to 2,000 tests per day, while Queen Elizabeth Hospital can conduct up to 400 tests per day and Universiti Malaysia Sabah can conduct up to 100 tests per day.

“If Covid-19 testing in Sabah exceeds 2,500 tests per day, the excess Covid-19 samples will be flown from Sabah to Peninsular Malaysia through the RMAF and private couriers to the Institute of Medical Research to cope with testing of additional samples,” he said.

For comparison, Noor Hisham had previously said that as of Sept 21, there are 59 laboratories nationwide that have the capacity to perform 39,854 RT-PCR tests per day and have used 30.93 percent of that capacity.

In addition to RT-PCR tests, Noor Hisham said there are 23 hospital laboratories and 26 health clinics under the ministry that are testing for Covid-19 using antigen rapid test kits (RTK-Ag). The Health DG said the rapid test kits have advantages in quickly testing for the disease in large numbers.

For the record, RTK-Ag tests are regarded as less sensitive than the ‘gold standard’ RT-PCR tests and are therefore more likely to miss some Covid-19 cases. Noor Hisham had previously said that RTK-Ag kits procured by the ministry have a sensitivity of 84.4 percent.

However, RTK-Ag requires less laboratory infrastructure and expertise to use and can give results in minutes rather than hours.

This comes as Sabah began reporting dozens, sometimes hundreds of new Covid-19 cases a day since the beginning of the month.

So far, 906 Covid-19 cases have been reported in Sabah since Sept 1, compared to 259 cases in the rest of the country over the same period.

For the long term, Noor Hisham said the Health Ministry is working to establish a molecular lab at Tawau Hospital.

In addition, he said the ministry is waiting to receive a shipment of Covid-19 test cartridges for the GeneXpert rapid molecular diagnostic system from the World Health Organisation.

These would be used at Tawau Hospital, Sandakan Hospital, and Lahad Datu Hospital.

“The GeneXpert machine has four drawers and it is capable of running 40 tests per day,” he said.

The US company Cepheid Inc, which manufactures the GeneXpert system and its test cartridges, claims that its test cartridges take one minute to prepare and can return a positive Covid-19 test result in 30 minutes, or a negative result in 45 minutes.

It also claimed to have 100 percent sensitivity and specificity, based on testing performed with 30 positive and 30 negative samples.

Meanwhile, on Facebook, Noor Hisham said personal protective equipment from Kuala Lumpur Hospital has been successfully shipped to the Sabah Health Department with help from the RMAF.

In addition, he said the ministry has obtained 210 German-made ventilators, which will be distributed to Health Ministry hospitals as necessary especially in Sabah.

“If this is still not enough, then ventilators at MOH hospitals in Peninsular Malaysia will be redeployed immediately.

“As many as 29 additional ventilators (29 intensive care unit ventilators and 18 portable ventilators) have been prepared for distribution if needed,” he said.

This is, in addition, to other preparations announced earlier.

Yesterday, Noor Hisham said the ministry has prepared 692 beds at Lahad Datu Hospital, Tawau Hospital, and Kunak Hospital for Covid-19 patients.

Of these, 251 are at Lahad Datu Hospital, 401 are at Tawau Hospital, and 40 are at Kunak Hospital.

In addition, hundreds of beds have been prepared at quarantine stations in Tawau, Lahad Datu, Kunak, and Semporna to receive those classified as “person under investigation”. These are:

Tawau

• 720 beds at Institut Perguruan Tawau

Lahad Datu

• 118 beds at Palm Inn Malaysia Palm Oil Board
• 160 beds at Institut Latihan Islam Malaysia
• 76 beds at Felda Residence Sahabat

Kunak

• 15 beds at Asrama Rumah Anak-Anak Yatim
• 15 beds at Rumah Kerajaan Negeri
• 100 beds at the Sekolah Menengah Agama Kunak hostel

Semporna

• 180 beds at Program Perumahan Rakyat Ria

- Mkini