SARAWAK’S third infectious disease test laboratory, and the first to be rated BSL3, could be up and running by next week.

The lab, sited at the Sarawak Heart Centre in Samarahan, 14km from Kuching, and which cost the federal and state governments nothing to build, will increase the state’s polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing capacity for the Covid-19 virus by 300 daily.

Sarawak has set a target of 2,000 tests a day in its battle to flatten the curve by identifying infected persons as quickly as possible to stop transmission of the contagious virus that has so far infected 468 people and killed 16 of them in the state.

The state’s two other infectious disease test labs, at the Sarawak general hospital and University Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas), are BSL2 category facilities.

An elated state Housing and Local Government Minister Dr Sim Kui Hian said the team, which has in it Sarawak General Hospital’s Clinical Research Centre head Dr Alan Fong, took less than three weeks to complete the lab.

Dr Sim, who is a key adviser to the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee, commended the team for achieving the “impossible” in setting up the lab way under the one year the process usually takes.

“This is the very spirit of solidarity, responding to the cry of ‘Sarawak United War’s effort’,” he said on Facebook, alluding to the contributions of the Forest Department, Unimas, Sarawak Heart Centre and state Health Department in lending their high-tech test equipment and manpower in setting up the lab.

Alan’s brother, engineer Raymond Fong, and his partner in Project & Programme Matters Sdn Bhd, Samson Nabaw donated time, expertise, energy and money to turn a pair of porta cabins into a fully functional lab that meets biological safety level standards.

Laboratory facilities that handle infectious agents are categorised by the BSL that corresponds to the risk level of the pathogens being handled.

BSL3 laboratories are designed to handle “indigenous or exotic agents that may cause serious or potentially lethal disease through the inhalation route of exposure” according to the Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories or BMBL.

Due to the urgency of the need for the lab, conventional set up methods were tossed out of the window.

They opted for porta cabins located on the hospital’s car park.

“Our role on the project was as project managers,” Fong told The Malaysian Insight.

“He (Nabaw) was the site guy pushing the day to day tasks and I was the guy procuring the contractors, organising the design taking cues and direction from the client and operator,” Fong said, in reference to the state Medical Department and the CRC, respectively.

Work started on April 1.

By April 15, the lab was commissioned and two days later on April 17, the key to the facility was handed over to the Medical Department.

Even though the lab is ready to go, it is temporarily held back because the reagents – a key component in the PCR tests – that were ordered from the United States had reportedly been “hijacked” by the Americans and diverted to meet domestic demands.

Still Dr Sim and the Health Department are confident the reagents would be delivered next week to boost the state’s efforts to flatten the curve. – April 25, 2020.