[ad_1]
PETALING JAYA: The Health Ministry will soon change its approach to treating Covid-19 cases on the west coast of Sabah, as cases along the east coast of the state show signs of decline.
“Our new challenge is on the west coast involving areas like Kota Kinabalu, Penampang and Putatan, where there is an upward trend in infections. Hopefully, we will be able to reduce the R0 in the next two weeks,” said the health director. -General Tan Sri Dr. Noor Hisham Abdullah.
R0 is used to indicate how contagious a disease is.
He said the ministry has also resolved its previous struggles it had in handling the situation on the East Coast.
He said recent activities on the ground found 13 new cases in Pulau Omadal in Semporna, adding that the team initially faced problems trying to reach out to community members, especially undocumented immigrants.
“Eventually we managed to convince them to take the test and go to the quarantine centers through the head of the family or the head of the village,” he said.
He said the team also had to deal with a slow response time of three to four days and transportation problems, as the evidence had to be sent to Kota Kinabalu for evaluation.
However, when the samples arrive in Kota Kinabalu, the labs will be dealing with backlogs, so the team had no choice but to send them to Peninsular Malaysia.
“To overcome this problem, we relied on RT-Antigen tests where we could get same-day results and immediately isolate positive cases,” he said.
Dr Noor Hisham added that initially, the team was dealing with around 60% positive cases in Semporna and said surveillance on the ground showed signs that the infection rate was slowing down.
He said efforts were also made to better equip Semporna Hospital to treat cases there, so that it would not always have to rely on Tawau Hospital.
“We also sent more than 1,000 medical workers from Peninsular Malaysia and around Sabah to handle cases there and we have noticed a downward trend in cases,” he said.
He said medical teams will continue to step up efforts, which could lead to a further drop in cases in the next two weeks.
“Now our new challenge is on the west coast, but we hope to have it under control and in two weeks, we could even reduce the R0 from 2.2 to 1 if not 0.5,” he said.
[ad_2]
