SARAWAK’S infection rate, for the period between January 1 to April 20, is 5.33%, the State Health Department said in rebutting claims made by Bandar Kuching MP Kelvin Yii that it is a high 8.11%. 

The rate is just 0.33% above the recommended 5% by the World Health Organisation.

State health director Dr Chin Zin Hing, in response to queries by The Malaysian Insight on the opposition MP’s claims made last week, said the increase in positive cases in the state reflects the result of the department’s current strategy of screening all individuals who have come in contact with positive cases, regardless of whether they show symptoms. 

“When a case is detected, we practise the trace, test, quarantine and isolate strategy.” 

In the strategy, Chin said tracing both active and passive contacts is actively carried out and these individuals will be immediately ordered isolated from the community even before they are tested. 

He said in that period, a total of 438,936 individuals were screened with the real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test method. 

Last week Yii also accused the state disaster management committee of not being transparent “with the real condition of Covid-19 in Sarawak”. 

Yii had said the state not testing enough was the reason “why many medical experts” had advocated a switch to the antigen rapid test kit (RT-Ag), which has shorter turnaround times and reduced costs. 

“We need to test as many as we can, get results quick, isolate them quick and treat them if needed. 

“I’d rather see higher numbers now rather than burying our heads in the sand as long as it shows we are testing enough and isolating them quickly as in managing an outbreak, time is of the essence,” he had said. 

But Chin said the state is using the RT-Ag kit in their case detection drive. 

“RT-Ag is used in contact screening, especially in longhouses to enable positive cases to be detected immediately and given prompt treatment,” he said. 

On Yii’s demand for a full disclosure of the number of tests being done on a daily basis and the percentage of positive cases, Chin said the department is also making efforts to increase the capacity of RT-PCR testing in existing laboratories. 

To a similar question earlier this week, state disaster management committee chairman Douglas Uggah said the department has, since the beginning of this year, tried its best to get additional staff to overwhelmed or understaffed hospital as well as upgrade hospitals to give them the capability to treat Covid-19 patients. 

Uggah also said the testing capacity had also increased from 2,500 per day to 5,500 now. 

Medical and health matters are under the purview of the federal government. – April 23, 2021.