PUTRAJAYA: Hospitals nationwide will begin using Baricitinib for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, especially category four and five patients, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said.

He said the Ministry of Health (MoH) had received fresh allocation to use Baricitinib which is seen to be effective when combined with Dexamethasone.

Dr Noor Hisham said the use of Baricitinib, which has a better effect, is hoped to increase the effectiveness of treatment for COVID-19 patients, in turn reducing fatalities.

"We hope that with high efficacy and better treatment, patients can recover from category five to four and so on," he said in a press conference on COVID-19 developments here today.

Category three refers to cases with pneumonia but not requiring oxygen, category four refers to those with pneumonia requiring oxygen, while those in category five require ventilator support.

Dr Noor Hisham said currently, there are a total of 826 category five patients in hospitals in the Klang Valley for a period of 21 days, while for category four, a total of 3,473 people are currently receiving treatment.

Meanwhile, MoH secretary-general Datuk Mohd Shafiq Abdullah said a total of RM38 million would be spent on the purchase of medicines, especially Baricitinib, and the ministry would not delay emergency procurement to manage the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, Greater Klang Valley Taskforce Chief Datuk Dr Chong Chee Keong said KKM has agreed to put up a micro oxygen plant and 1,000 multiple-sized oxygen tanks at the Malaysia Agro Exposition Park (MAEPS) Integrated Quarantine and Treatment Centre (PKRC) 2.0 in Serdang to increase capacity should there be a need for them.

He said these were among the steps taken to meet the rise in cases, as there was an increase in the number of category three patients in MAEPS, which averages 600 admissions a day from the COVID Assessment Centre (CAC).

-- BERNAMA