COVID-19: MOH has taken all important measures

KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of Health (MOH) clarified that it has taken all important measures in anticipating several projections made by various international organisations on the COVID-19 pandemic situation in Malaysia.

Its minister, Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba in a statement yesterday said in the early phases of the pandemic, JP Morgan and the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER) predicted that the number of COVID-19 cases by mid-April would increase to between 5,000 and 8,000 cumulatively.

Following that, he said, various public health interventions had been carried out, resulting in lower numbers compared to the predictions by these organisations and in reality, the number of cases reported was only 4,987.

"In November, the Imperial College United Kingdom projected that newly detected daily cases in Malaysia would be 4,000 to 7,000 in November and December. However, with the various interventions carried out by the government, the daily new cases only reached about 1,000 to 2,000.”

He said this in response to a news article, “Putrajaya Bracing for the Worst as Lack of Beds, Manpower Threatens COVID Battle”, posted in a news portal yesterday.

Adham further said that recently, the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), USA projected that daily new cases would reach 5,000 in February, 2021

"In anticipating this prediction, the MOH has been continuously monitoring and enhancing various strategies, measures and interventions. The ministry has further increased the hospital capacity and establishing more Low Risk COVID-19 Quarantine and Treatment Centres (PKRC).

"In line with this, MAEPS 2.0 has been established with a higher capacity to accommodate increasing cases with the number of beds to be raised to 10,000," he said.

According to Adham, currently, the situation in Malaysia is still under control while the MOH has enhanced and put in place various public health interventions and ensuring hospital preparedness in anticipating increasing number of cases as predicted by IHME.

As of yesterday he said, there were 25,456 beds in total for COVID-19 cases in hospitals and the PKRC, with occupancy rate of 43 per cent while there were 871 intensive care unit (ICU) beds with current utilisation of 159 beds (18 per cent) for COVID-19 patients.

He also noted that the total number of ventilators available was 1,581, out of which 591 were allotted for COVID-19 patients with current utilisation of 79 (five per cent).

To address staff requirement, he said, various actions had been taken by the ministry such as inter and intrastate staff mobilisation, and capitalising the public-private partnership, whereby additional help was sought from universities and the private sector, with more contract officers employed.

"The management of this pandemic is wholly a government approach with collaboration among various agencies, such as the Malaysian National Security Council (MKN), National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma), Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Human Resources, Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development," he said.

-- BERNAMA