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PETALING JAYA: Malaysia is on par with countries like South Korea in the number of Covid-19 screenings per capita, says Health Director General Tan Sri Dr. Noor Hisham Abdullah.
He noted that the country conducted 51.96 Covid-19 tests for every 1,000 Malaysians, and only 0.8% tested positive.
“In South Korea they do 46.41 tests for every 1,000 people and only 1% are positive.
“In our neighboring country, Thailand, they perform 6.57 (test) per 1,000 people and the positive rate is almost the same with us,” Dr. Noor Hisham said at a press conference live from his home yesterday.
He said New Zealand and Australia had the best test rates with 205.7 and 309.61 tests per 1,000 inhabitants respectively.
Both New Zealand and Australia had also had very low positive rates of 0.2% and 0.3% respectively, said Dr Noor Hisham.
Dr Noor Hisham said the 60 laboratories in Malaysia perform some 41,354 real-time reverse polymerase chain tests (RT-PCR) daily.
“Yesterday (October 9) some 17,172 tests were carried out. The total accumulated RT-PCR carried out as of October 9 is 266,747 tests, ”he said.
Dr. Noor Hisham also said that the tests in Sabah had also increased by almost 100% to 4,000 daily tests.
Regarding health workers in the intensive care unit (ICU) at Queen Elizabeth Hospital 11 in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Dr. Noor Hisham said that all medical officers and nurses at the hospital had been screened.
“As of October 9, only two positive cases were detected. We are still investigating whether the cases were contracted in the community or in the hospital.
“We are doing everything we can to make sure that nurses (and healthcare workers) adhere to effective infection control measures and practice good clinical guidance,” he said.
An online portal reported that healthcare workers at Kota Kinabalu hospital were struggling to cope with their workload after many nurses in the ICU department were forced to self-quarantine.
Dr. Noor Hisham added that to date, 579 healthcare workers had been infected since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and of that, 198 were in Sabah.
He said there were 85 cases in October compared to 68 cases last month.
Yesterday, Malaysia registered 374 new cases of Covid-19, with three deaths reported.
Dr. Noor Hisham said that all three deaths were recorded in Sabah.
Two men aged 61 and 51 respectively and a 54-year-old woman were the latest victims.
Dr Noor Hisham said that Sabah recorded 277 cases, making it the highest number of infections out of the total number of cases recorded yesterday.
They are followed by Selangor (44 cases), Kedah (27 cases from the Tembok or prison group), Kuala Lumpur (four cases) and Putrajaya (one case).
Of the 374 cases, only two were imported from the Philippines.
Dr Noor Hisham also said that six new clusters were reported: four in Selangor and one in Sabah and Sarawak.
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