THE government has spent RM96 million since January on Covid-19 tests conducted on more than a million individuals, said Health Minister Dr Adham Baba.

The Health Ministry started the Covid-19 tests and screenings since January when the virus was first identified.

“As of now, the ministry has spent RM96 million for reagents and test kits for Covid-19 screenings,” he said in a Dewan Rakyat written reply to Lim Lip Eng (PH-Kepong).

As of August 6, a total of 1.012 million individuals underwent Covid-19 tests in Malaysia.

From these, a total of 72,736 non-citizens were screened (7.2%) and 2,683 tested positive for Covid-19.

“Taking into account, there are individuals who have undergone tests more than once, a total of 1.867 million Covid-19 screening tests have been conducted.”

He also said 55 public and private facilities are performing the Covid-19 tests, involving the reverse transcriptase test – polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and rapid test kit (antigen) (RTK Ag).

Adam said 1.74 million underwent RT- PCR, while 125,371 did RTK Ag. – August 14, 2020.