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PETALING JAYA (THE STAR / ASIA NEWS NETWORK) – Malaysia had the highest reproduction number of Covid-19 (Rt) on September 15 among six other countries in the region, according to a UK-based disease modeling center.
The Center for Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases on its website “Epiforecasts” estimated Malaysia’s Covid-19 breeding number on September 15 to be 1.57, followed by Singapore with 1.15, Thailand with 1.1 , Indonesia with 1.06 and the Philippines with 1.0.
Two countries that recorded a Covid-19 reproduction rate below 1.0 were Vietnam with 0.61 and Cambodia with 0.49.
However, data were not available for Myanmar, Brunei and Laos.
The R, or reproduction number, is the infectivity rate and estimates the average number of people a Covid-19 positive patient can infect.
“Our modeling framework, based on open source tools, takes into account delays in uncertain reporting, so that the number of reproduction is estimated based on underlying latent infections and not on reported cases or deaths,” he said. your website.
The center, which is located in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, claims to be a multidisciplinary group of epidemiologists, mathematicians, economists, statisticians and clinicians.
While the center’s estimate of 1.57 on September 15 for Malaysia was close to the Ministry of Health’s figure of 1.58 on September 13, it did not explain why this was higher than the infectivity rates in Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines, which have a much higher number of cases. .
Other countries severely affected by the pandemic, such as Great Britain, which has a total of 390,358 cases, also had a slightly lower reading than Malaysia.
Malaysia’s Rt peaked at 2.34 on September 8 and at 2.30 on September 11.
Chief Health Officer Dr. Noor Hisham Abdullah previously warned that it was crucial to keep the Rt below 1.60 to avoid a new wave of Covid-19 infections in the country.
Last week, he pointed to the need to strike a balance between protecting lives and livelihoods.
“We should not repeat another blockade as seen in other countries. Our Rt is alarming,” he tweeted.
On September 18, the British government stated on its official website that the R number in the country was estimated to be between 1.1 and 1.4, and that the number of new infections was increasing between 2% and 7%. every day.
“An R number between 1.1 and 1.4 means that, on average, every 10 infected people will infect between 11 and 14 more people,” he said, noting that there was a generalized growth of the epidemic throughout the country.
According to the Daily Mail, the R-value for Britain estimated by Imperial College’s Covid-19 response team was 2.4 before the lockdown began.
“But some experts looking at outbreaks around the world have estimated that this could be closer to the 6.6 mark.
“Estimates of the R number vary because the true size of the pandemic remains a mystery and how fast the virus spreads depends on the environment,” he said.
The virus will spread faster in densely populated cities with public transportation as the main method of transportation.
When asked why Malaysia posted a higher Rt compared to other countries that reported much higher cases in the region, the Chairman of the Association of the Malaysian Physicians Coalition, Dr. M. Raj Kumar, said that the number was not fixed.
“Instead, it changes as our behavior changes or immunity develops. Rt does not depend on the number of cases in the country, but on how many other people can become infected from one infected case,” he said.
The epidemiologist at the Universiti Malaya, Dr. Awang Bulgiba Awang Mahmud, said that while the R-value was an important indicator of whether a country was safe from Covid-19, it was not the only one.
“Other indicators include the country’s ability to cope with the disease and the trend in the number of new cases and discharges compared to the number of new infections,” he said.
A value of Rt, the effective reproduction number, of less than 1.0 is a good sign. While R0, or R-nothing, is the initial reproduction number of the virus at the beginning of the pandemic, Rt refers to the reproduction number at a given time.
“An Rt of less than 1.0 means that the number of people infected on average will decrease over time and if this situation persists, the disease will eventually disappear. Any Rt above 1.0 means that the virus is spreading rapidly,” said the professor. Awang. .
An Rt of 1.0, he said, meant that a disease was endemic and would persist over time, such as dengue.
Malina Osman, a medical epidemiologist at the University of Putra Malaysia, said it was difficult to compare the R-value of Covid-19 with previous outbreaks of infectious diseases in the country, such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and Influenza A ( H1N1). in 2009.
“In the local context, there is no documented evidence on the R-value for SARS and H1N1 as there were not many cases of both diseases in Malaysia at that time.
“However, studies conducted during the Sars outbreak with data from Hong Kong and Singapore showed that the R value ranged from 2.2 to 3.6. For H1N1, the R value documented in various studies ranged from 4 0 to 4.5, “he said.
While the Rt value was a good indicator of the transmissibility of the virus, Associate Professor Malina said care should be taken when interpreting the R value as it provides a generalized picture of an entire country.
“The R value is an estimated index for the entire country. Therefore, the value may be overestimated or underestimated for specific districts and areas. Counting the Rt value is a complex procedure. It depends on the type of transmission and the mathematical models used. , epidemiological data, population structure and intrinsic growth rate, “he said.
Other factors, such as disease prevention policies and public compliance, were important in determining whether the virus remained a threat to the country, Associate Professor Malina said.
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