PKR president Anwar Ibrahim is again urging the government to ramp up testing to curb the rise of sporadic cases in the country.
He said that the country’s Covid-19 testing has decreased by 52 percent since May 29 and that it was “unsurprising” that daily cases had also gone down by 48 percent over the same period.
Citing the World Health Organisation (WHO), Anwar said 10 to 30 tests should be performed for each positive case - or more during an outbreak to contain sporadic cases.
“Based on the WHO’s recommendation, Malaysia should conduct at least 138,000 to 300,000 screening tests per day.
“If 138,000 screening tests were done today, we would definitely detect over 9,000 new cases,” he said.
On February 5, health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said that the Health Ministry planned to increase the testing capacity to 200,000 a day.
On Saturday, Noor Hisham said government labs were now running at full capacity and urged private laboratories - which were said to be operating at less than half of their maximum capacity - to increase their testing for Covid-19.
Anwar said this was a puzzling development.
“I am puzzled to think why our testing capabilities did not achieve the set targets, and why the government with its powers under the Emergency Ordinance is now appealing to the private sector for help in this matter,” said the PKR president.
Yesterday, Malaysia conducted 58,384 Covid-19 tests, compared to 70,044 a week ago
The dip in testing rate raised concerns on whether the country was getting an accurate picture of the Covid-19 situation and whether testing has been adequate - with some states reporting high positivity rates.
For example, Negeri Sembilan, Klang Valley and Labuan saw double digits positivity rate for Covid-19 tests during the week of June 13 to 19.
The World Health Organisation has recommended that governments keep the positivity rate below five percent to ensure adequate testing. - Mkini
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