Federation proposes PPP for early Covid-19 treatment nationwide

KUCHING: The Federation of Private Medical Practitioners' Associations Malaysia (FPMPAM) has submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Health (MoH) for a privatepublic partnership (PPP) programme to implement a nationwide early treatment for Covid-19 using existing general practitioners (GPs) and primary care doctors in the country.

In a statement Sunday, it pointed out there were at least 8,000 GPs in Malaysia, and that each GP treating 10 to 20 symptomatic patients daily would be able to provide treatment for tens of thousands of early cases of Covid-19.

“The number of people tested positive for Covid-19 in the country is expected to rise to 6,000 by mid-April given the current trend. This would mean the pool of infectious cases in the community could easily reach tens, if not hundreds of thousands,” it said.

FPMPAM noted that the only commonly-used medication shown to have some effect in Covid-19 patients has been chloroquine and its derivative hydroxychloroquine, adding this is already being used in the treatment for hospitalised Covid19 patients.

"Hydroxychloroquine is cheap with few side effects and is already being used as part of the treatment protocol in hospitals in this country and around the world. There is already evidence that it does work.

"We need to act as fast as possible. Waiting for timeconsuming clinical trials to produce evidence that may come too late is not an option," it said.

It recalled that the strategy to break the transmission chain of SARS-CoV-2 was to treat patients with prima facie evidence of the disease, and that a large number of patients would need to be treated in a short time to bring the infectious pool to below the critical mass in order to break the chain of transmission.

"Hopefully it will also modulate the progress of the disease and decrease progression to severe disease and hopefully the number of ICU (Intensive Care Unit) admissions.

"This approach is being practised by doctors in some countries. Currently, there is no stock of hydroxychloroquine in this country for use by the private sector. The only stock of hydroxychloroquine is with the government sector," it said.