FORMER health minister Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad has asked the Ministry of Health why it has stopped making granular data on daily Covid-19 deaths public.

“I truly wanted to know why the Health Ministry and director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah stopped sharing granular data on deaths.

“Aren’t they happy with my plots that deaths evidently involve younger age groups? They should be thankful for the reminder.

“Health Ministry, do the needful,” Dzulkefly said on Twitter today.

Dzulkefly was responding to consultant paediatrician Dr Amar Singh HSS’s tweet on whether it is possible to ask the ministry why it has stopped including the data on the deaths in the daily Covid-19 press statements. 

“No idea in which hospital they died, no idea what age etc since July 14, 2021.

Age is critical to understand the changing pandemic,” Amar said.

The profiles of the deceased including their gender, age, place of death and health history was part of the daily press release since the first Covid-19 death was reported in the country on March 17, 2020.

However, the ministry stopped providing the data on July 14. Dzulkefly also highlighted in a previous tweet that deaths of young people plus numbers of people declared dead on arrival (DOA) have been on an uptrend.

“This is the final plot before it was blocked on July 13, 2020.

“We compiled the deaths according to Epid Weeks. Obvious that the younger age group (25-44) deaths are increasing by the week. Pay close attention, peruse the plot,” he said in another tweet.

He also noted that the daily death toll has been on the rise since July 15.

“The trend of increasing deaths. 15th: 110, 16th: 115, 17th: 138.

Trend of DOA is also on the rise. A total of 56 in three days!” he said.

He said the ministry should emphasise the number of deaths and the details over the daily cases as part of mitigation efforts.

He also questioned the ministry on the measures taken to curb DOA cases.

Noor Hisham said earlier this month that there has been a sevenfold increase in DOA cases as of July 2.

Of the 4,856 Covid-19 deaths reported as of July 2, 670 or 13.8% were DOA. – July 18, 2021.