INFECTIOUS disease experts have welcomed the Health Ministry’s plan to carry out 16,000 tests per day for Covid-19 come April.

Mass testing has helped South Korea quickly bring the pandemic under control, instead of a forced lockdown.

The country ramped up its diagnostic capacity to an unprecedented scale to bring down Covid-19 infection rates, the experts said.

Malaysia’s Health Ministry announced on Sunday that it aims to be able to carry out 7,000 tests daily next week, and 16,000 tests daily by April.

Currently, 3,500 tests are conducted daily in 18 ministry laboratories and five private ones.

In comparison, at least 20,000 people are being tested daily for Covid-19 in South Korea, more tests per capita than anywhere else in the world.

It has conducted 270,000 tests since the outbreak started, more than 5,200 tests per million inhabitants.

In contrast, the US carried out just 74 tests per million inhabitants, as of last Tuesday, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). 

So far, the new confirmed cases across South Korea has stayed below 100 over the last few days, down from 909 at its peak on February 29.

“All this was done without locking down entire cities,” said Dr Lam Sai Kit, who is Universiti Malaya’s research consultant in virology.

“Diagnostic capacity is key to epidemic control, as well as contact tracing and case isolation.

“To facilitate testing, South Korea sets up Covid-19 testing tents on Seoul’s streets, and they are spearheading efforts to contain new and worrying clusters of the virus that still emerge from time to time.”

He said there are 43 drive-through testing stations nationwide in South Korea, a concept now copied in the US, Canada and UK.

Besides extensive testing and containment measures, health authorities have turned to technology in an attempt to contain the outbreak, including sending smartphone alerts informing people of an infected person’s previous movements.

By retracing how someone came to be infected, South Korean authorities have been able to give the public details about new infections and identify infection clusters early.

Its Interior Ministry has also rolled out a smartphone app that can track the quarantined and collect data on symptoms.

Despite the apparent success of the South Korean model, there have been recent reports of new clusters, including 129 linked to a Seoul call centre.

“It just shows that no country should let its guard down, not South Korea, China, Taiwan, just because of the apparent decreasing trend,” said Lam, who is also an Academy of Sciences Malaysia senior fellow.

“I am glad that the Ministry of Health is able to increase the number of tests per day to 16,000 from April. This is in line with the recommendation of WHO.

“However, if we aim to follow the South Korean model, we have to do much more, including the use of AI to conduct its surveillance and containment programmes,” he said.

Dr Christopher Lee, a retired health ministry deputy director-general of research and technical support, said testing should be the key priority as it is the only way of identifying and isolating the infected.

“The more we test, and the faster the testing can be done, the better it will help minimise contact that could lead to transmission. Patients can then be isolated earlier in the disease.”

Lee said Malaysia may be forced to be selective in who gets tested at the moment.

“If a country can’t keep up with the demand, then we have prioritise who to test – usually focusing on those who are sick and those who are more elderly especially with co-morbidities.”

Malaysia recorded 106 new Covid-19 cases yesterday. The figure brings the total number of infected patients to 1,624 cases, and 16 have died. – March 25, 2020.