PUTRAJAYA, April 14 — The Health Ministry will construct five more new laboratories to accomodate more tests of Covid-19 samples, said director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
He said these will be situated at the ministry’s offices in Tawau and Sandakan in Sabah, Miri and Bintulu in Sarawak, and Kluang in Johor.
“This will increase our existing labs from 43 to 48 total, thereby pushing our current capacity of conducting 11,500 tests daily to the projected aim of doing at least 16,000 tests per day,” Dr Noor Hisham said during the daily press conference.
As the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test can take up to six hours to produce results and was causing a backlog in testing, he said the ministry has learned to optimise the usage of its available resources.
“For example those placed into 14-day quarantine for close contact with suspected Covid-19 cases must undergo PCR swabs on the first and 13th day. Now we use serology antibodies since it is faster and can be used by the bedside without having to be sent to the labs.
“If the serology test comes out as positive, then we retest the individual using PCR. That way this method helps us to save on PCR usage in labs, as a form of optimisation,” Dr Noor Hisham said.
A total of 4,987 positive cases have been reported in Malaysia, including 170 today; 2,478 cases have since recovered and discharged from hospitals, including 202 today.
Five more deaths were also reported today, bringing the total to 82 deaths, or 1.64 per cent of all total cases.
As of today approximately 1,934,311 Covid-19 cases have been reported worldwide, with 456,599 recoveries and 120,438 deaths. The United States, Spain and Italy remain the top three nations with the most infections and deaths, at 587,173 cases and 23,644 deaths, 172,541 cases and 18,056 deaths, and 159,516 cases and 20,465 deaths, respectively.
