Have comprehensive NTS to address lack of Covid-19 testing, says MP

KUCHING: The federal government and the Ministry of Health (MoH) must present a comprehensive National Testing Strategy (NTS) to address the severe lack of Covid-19 testing in the country and to incorporate it as an important element in the national recovery plan.

Bandar Kuching MP Kelvin Yii said the NTS must focus on comprehensive steps for each phase of intervention, whether containment or mitigation.

“It must have clear objectives and defined approaches and methods to achieve the desired health outcomes while handling the surge of cases, or preparing for future outbreaks.

“The first of such strategy must incorporate ways to increase the testing capacity to truly reflect the real disease burden on the ground,” he said in a statement yesterday.

He added the country conducted 95,772 tests on Wednesday, and a 12.51 per cent positive rate, more than double WHO’s recommended rate of less than 5 per cent.

“This not only shows the pandemic is out of control, but also shows we are severely under-testing, and as a result we may be failing to detect hidden cases in the community.

“The fundamentals of any infectious disease control are quick detection and fast isolation. For them to succeed there must be sufficient screening and efficient contact tracing. Not doing so is the main reason why the government fails to control the pandemic.

He added that mass testing would enable people with Covid-19 to be diagnosed earlier, isolated, and treated early to prevent seriously ill cases and deaths.

He went on to say that on Wednesday the country recorded a high of 199 deaths, 33 of them ‘Brought in Dead’ in the country.

“This proves how widespread the virus is in our community, the lack of testing and the breakdown of contact tracing as we see a significant percentage of people dying at home even before ge ing the needed medical care at the hospital.

“That is why the government must build a national capacity to test 250,000-300,000 people daily by adjusting its strategy away from limited testing and over reliance on Rt-PCR. Also mobilise all stakeholders including private hospitals, private clinics, and empowering factories and workplaces, and even individuals to do self-testing via the now available self-test kits.

Yii also said the government must look at, firstly regulating such kits through the Medical Device Authority (MDA) to ensure its sensitivity and specificity, and then subsidising it to make sure it is affordable and accessible for all industries and even personal use.

“The government must make available cheap saliva-based RTK-Ag tests at commercial pharmacies and government health centres for any member of the public to do self-testing at home.

“For industries, clear testing SOPs which include frequency of testing can be formulated based on risk-assessment of each industry. For high-risk industries, they can have more frequent testing.

“This then must be accompanied by a comprehensive reporting SOP for people to inform the authorities of a positive test as well as for it to be connected to the national system for contact tracing and case reporting,” he said.

He also suggested that people who are asymptomatic or with mild symptoms could be home quarantined and monitored virtually by either healthcare officers from the MoH or even the private general practitioners (GPs).