THE Health Ministry has done well in making Covid-19 data more available to the public by disclosing it on Github but it needs to do more, said Bangi MP Ong Kian Ming.

Currently, available data is insufficient, for example, on case progression of patients in the different categories of Covid-19, the Selangor coordinator for Operation Surge Capacity of the Covid-19 vaccination programme said during a webinar today.

“Indications are that the number of serious cases have gone down in Klang Valley, which is the reason for why more economic activities are allowed starting today. 

“When I see the top level numbers, categories 3 to 5 have remained stagnant at about 300 to 400 cases over the past two to three weeks. 

“Does that mean the number of cases in the Klang Valley has gone down and shifted to other states? We want to see these breakdowns,” Ong said in the virtual event organised by UOB Kay Hian Wealth Advisors this afternoon.

He also asked if the ministry could publish information on which type of Covid-19 vaccine patients had received to evaluate the efficacy of the various vaccines in the country’s portfolio. 

Another speaker, Dr Khor Swee Kheng, independent consultant for the World Health Organisation (WHO), told the webinar that more data is always better and more helpful. 

Data must not only be provided transparently, but the methodology used to obtain it must also be sound to avoid creating a sense of false security, he added.

He said, for example, the ministry’s data on patients on ventilation could be more detailed.

Khor also pointed out that the ministry still manages data manually, even after 18 months of the pandemic.

“A lot of data is still being keyed onto an Excel spreadsheet, sent by WhatsApp, and then somebody tabulates that,” he said. 

Khor added that the pandemic has not caused but merely exposed the weaknesses in Malaysia’s healthcare system  

“The cause of this is decades of under-investment and decades of culture inside the ministry to not share bad news. 

“There is also not enough political capital put into the system. Health is not generally high up in politics unlike economic development, education, home affairs and security,” he said. 

Because of the political tendency to focus on these other areas, Khor said the Health Ministry has found it difficult to assert itself every time major issues involving public health emerged.

“In the transition between Prime Minister 7 (Dr Mahathir Mohamad) to Prime Minister 8 (Muhyiddin Yassin), there was a short time where the Health Ministry was front and centre, then gradually replaced by the security and economic agencies. 

“Which implied that they (those ministries) are more important and politically capitalised,” he said. – August 16, 2021.