MALAYSIA needs the “whole society” and “strategic” approach to combat and flatten the Covid-19 curve, says former Health Minister Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad.

Speaking at a press conference, the Kuala Selangor MP said the current government has yet to come up with a plan that can reduce the daily infectivity rate.

“The find, test, trace, isolate and support (FTTIS) system needs to be implemented to its maximum capacity. This system is recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO). This is a strategic system that can flatten Covid-19 curve.”

“Then we need a whole society approach as being done by many other countries in the world including in Asia. If not, we are just going to chase the virus and not eliminate it,” Dr Dzulkefly said.

Last week, The Health and Sciences Covid-19 Advisory Group of Experts (EAG) made a similar call urging the government to implement the targeted movement control order (TMCO) with comprehensive digital FTTIS.

“All areas placed under TMCO must fully employ digitised FTTIS, which is the key element for mitigating Covid-19 according to the WHO.

“Highly TMCO will minimise economic disruption, besides reducing the spread of Covid-19, balancing the wellbeing of both lives and livelihoods.

“State and district health authorities must be empowered to work with external experts and determine clear and transparent thresholds for when an area should be placed under MCO,” EAG said in a statement.

Dr Dzulkefly who heads the Selangor Task Force for Covid-19 also urged Putrajaya to share its Covid-19 data in order to help curb the virus in a more effective way.

“There needs to be a cooperation, a solid cooperation between the federal government and the state government. Data sharing on Covid-19 is important,” said Dr Dzulkefly.

Dr Dzulkefly’s sentiment on data sharing was mirrored by Dr Mariah Mahmud.

Dr Mariah is the Selangor executive councillor in charge of public health, unity, women and family development.

“The reason given is that the information is classified. What we in Selangor need is just the information on who has been diagnosed, so we can perform contact tracing better.”

“In Selangor, we have our own technology and artificial intelligence to predict where the outbreak might occur. We manage to control the situation in Selangor in the first and second wave of the pandemic. But in the third wave, when we asked for the data from Putrajaya, our request was denied,” she said.

Last year, Dr Mariah said Putrajaya’s decision in not sharing Covid-19 data has left the state in the lurch.

She said the state government has been hoping to merge its contact tracing application, Selangkah, with the federal government’s MySejahtera for ease of data gathering.

Data sharing, according to Dr Mariah, was to enable the integration of Selangkah and MySejahtera to assist the Selangor Health Department in predicting where future infections might break out in Selangor.

The press conference today was organised by the Committee to End the Emergency.

Dr Dzulkefly and Dr Mariah were joined by Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii and Dr Mathen Nair of Malaysian United Democratic Alliance.

All four demanded the government explain its intention to declare an emergency when the outbreak can be controlled by using the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 (Act 342).

“What has the emergency done to help reduce daily cases and improve the situation? Nothing,” said Dr Dzulkefly.

Dr Mathen said it is the best time for the country to allow parliament to sit so MPs can debate on the effective way to fight the pandemic.

“This is the most important time for parliament to sit. More than anything else. So, all the MPs can bring forward what the people are worried about to parliament.”

“Look at how New Zealand handled the pandemic. They focused on fighting it over anything else. Other countries too have shifted to solely focusing on fighting the virus,” he added. – May 5, 2021.