Health Minister Dr Adham Baba today refuted the allegation that the health authority had fabricated Covid-19 daily data to make the number of cases look high.
Speaking at a press conference, he stressed that all data provided by the Health Ministry was verified at multiple levels, right from the district health offices up to their headquarters.
According to him, Malaysia was not the only country experiencing an increase in Covid-19 infections of late.
"I would like to address this issue where data processed by the Health Ministry was alleged to have been a fabrication when we know that the spikes that happened of late were cases that (were genuinely) detected in the field.
"As of April 27, the number of Covid-19 positive cases recorded all over the world had jumped to 149,031 million cases. Deaths were recorded at 3.15 million. This is based on the latest data provided by the University of John Hopkins.
"The United States is the most affected with 32.92 million cases, followed by India with 17.99 million cases," said Adham (above) at the joint press conference with Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin in Putrajaya.
Adham and Khairy co-chair the Covid-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee Special Committee (JKJAV).
Adham said that neighbouring countries were also seeing an increase in their number of new Covid-19 cases including the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand.
In the past 14 days, he said the Philippines recorded an average of 8,624 new cases, Indonesia (4,900 cases), and Thailand (1,698).
"The trend is similar in Malaysia where yesterday the total number increased to 398,451 cases.
"All Covid-19 data in Malaysia is processed according to certain procedures to ensure that they are accurate and valid. All test results, whether they were conducted at government clinics and hospitals or private facilities, have to be uploaded to the National Public Health Laboratories Information System (Simka).
"And this system is always being monitored by the Health Ministry through the district health offices, state health departments and national public health laboratories," he said.
Meanwhile, Khairy told the press conference that they planned to complete the vaccination process for Sarawak by August.
This came as the Sarawak government's electoral term is nearing expiration, requiring a state election to be held by Aug 7.
"I have given my assurance that the vaccination in Sarawak will be completed the latest by August," he said when answering a reporter's question.
Khairy said the committee had also offered the AstraZeneca vaccine to Sarawak to speed up the inoculation process there.
For the record, the committee today announced that AstraZeneca would only be used for those who volunteer for it.
Asked whether there was any plan to allow interstate travel for those who had completed their two-dose immunisation against Covid-19, he said that might be the option when the country reaches herd immunity.
According to Khairy, they might also consider adopting what the United States was allowing in that those who had completed their vaccination would be allowed to remove their face masks in less-crowded places.
"That is the situation in the US where they have vaccinated 40 percent. We may consider this when our country reaches a higher percentage," he said.
Khairy added the decision would still depend on the number of daily cases in the country and advice from health experts based on data they have. - Mkini
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