Sabah Covid-19 outbreak may take 3-4 weeks to contain - Health DG
COVID-19 | Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah predicts that it may take another three to four weeks before the Covid-19 outbreak in Sabah is brought under control.
During his daily briefing from home quarantine today, he emphasised that the outbreak can be contained with support from the public, just like how the various clusters of infection in Kedah and Sarawak had been reined in before...
COVID-19 | Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah predicts that it may take another three to four weeks before the Covid-19 outbreak in Sabah is brought under control.
During his daily briefing from home quarantine today, he emphasised that the outbreak can be contained with support from the public, just like how the various clusters of infection in Kedah and Sarawak had been reined in before.
“Now, our focus, our war is in Sabah. So, we hope we can garner support from the public and the private sector working together as one and break the chain of infection in time.
“We estimate it may take about three to four weeks before we can contain the infection in Sabah,” he said during a briefing that was broadcasted live through Facebook.
There have been 3,148 cases of Covid-19 in Sabah since the first cluster in the outbreak - the Benteng LD cluster - was identified on Sept 1.
Nevertheless, Noor Hisham pointed out that Malaysia has faced large outbreaks before, such as the Sivagangga, Telaga, Sungai, Kurau, and Sala clusters that emerged in Kedah one after another since July.
“All (of those) clusters, we managed to end within a short period of time, in three to four weeks.
“What is more important is the public health intervention. So, we can do the surveillance, we can do the close contact of the cases, but we need the cooperation of the public – that is to stay at home if possible,” he urged, while reminding those who venture out of the home to observe the government’s standard operating procedures.
“If we do that, we break the chain of Covid-19 infection because we do not give an opportunity for the virus to spread.
“If we can do so, as we have done it in the past, rest assured we can break the chain of Covid-19 infection in our country,” he added.
Noor Hisham acknowledged there is a backlog in testing in Sabah.
He said the 60 laboratories nationwide have the capacity to conduct 41,354 reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests per day, and have successfully conducted 21,748 tests yesterday that amounted to 52.59 percent of the total capacity.
However, the laboratories in Sabah are only able to process 2,500 to 3,000 tests per day, and some swab samples collected in Sabah have been flown to the Institute for Medical Research in Kuala Lumpur to cope with the volume.
“The issue is logistics. So now, we are addressing the issue of logistics in terms of bringing some of the samples from Sabah to Peninsular Malaysia.
“With daily flights, perhaps we can speed up the tests. Our benchmark is to have the tests done within 24 to 72 hours.
“So, we hope we can increase our efficiency in doing the test, and hopefully by doing so, we can support the public health action in the field,” he added.
Meanwhile, Noor Hisham noted that the ministry had received much support from the private sector and NGOs to work together and tackle the pandemic at its onset.
He appealed for renewed collaboration to tackle the current outbreak in Sabah.
“We need to work together as a team. I am sure that together, we can make a big difference in healthcare. We can make the impossible possible,” he said.
Report this comment
Are you sure you want to delete this comment?
This action cannot be undone.