MALAYSIA’S definition of Covid-19 close contacts is from the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said on the back of calls for the definition to be widened.

After reading out the current definition in a live-streamed press conference, he said the ministry will review it from time to time. 

“The Health Ministry will check the definition from time to time. The current definition we are using is from WHO,” he said at press conference broadcast live from Putrajaya.

Bukit Gasing rep Rajiv Rishyakaran previously said the ministry must widen the definition of close contact in virus cases so that a wider range of potentially exposed people can be identified and curb the spread of the virus. 

He said that the ministry’s current definition of a close contact does not truly cover every person in close proximity to an infected person. 

Rajiv suggested the ministry take a leaf out of the United States’ Centre for Disease Control, which defines close contact as “someone who was within 2m of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period”.

In Malaysia, the ministry defines close contact as someone exposed by providing direct care for an infected patient, working with healthcare workers infected with Covid-19, visiting patients or staying in the same environment of a patient. 

The ministry also defines a close contact as someone working in proximity or sharing the same classroom environment with a Covid-19 patient, travelling together with a patient in any kind of conveyance, and those living in the same household as a patient. – December 14, 2020.