THE Health Ministry must explain why elected representatives have been barred from offering Covid-19 screening for their constituents, Teo Nie Ching said today.

The Kulai member of parliament said that director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah had on May 30 urged state governments along with members of parliament and assemblymen to help carry out targeted screening using the Antigen Rapid Test Kit (RTK-Ag).

However, that is not the reality on the ground, the former deputy education minister said in a statement.

She said the government did not actually allow elected representatives to conduct targeted mass testing.

She noted that an application by Parit Yaani state assemblyman Aminolhuda Hassan to conduct RTK-Antigen screening was rejected by Batu Pahat District Health Office on June 9.

Another application by Yong Peng state assemblywoman Chew Peck Choo to conduct RTK-Antigen screening was similarly rejected by the same District Health Office on July 1.

She also said that the ministry must explain why it reduced Covid-19 testing in June.

“Before the imposition of full MCO 3.0 on June 1, Dr Noor Hisham had said the ministry would undertake targeted screening during the lockdown, including the Rapid Test Kit-Antigen (RTK-Ag) detection method for Covid-19.

“However, we did not do more testing in June. In fact, we did less testing in June, even though the full lockdown was extended to four weeks,” Teo said.
 
She added that 2,661,888 tests were conducted in May. However, June recorded a lesser number of screening with 2,491,232 tests.

“Why was targeted mass testing not conducted as promised? The Ministry of Health owes us an answer,” Teo said.

She said that although the number of screening was gradually increased in July, one month had already been wasted.

She also said that the ministry must drastically increase its targeted testing and allow all elected representatives to organise subsidised screening programmes.

Malaysia recorded 199 deaths yesterday and a positivity rate as high as 12.51%.

This comes after 51 days of full movement control order and two weeks of enhanced movement control order in most of the Klang Valley areas. – July 22, 2021.