KUCHING: The Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) and the Health Ministry (MoH) must ramp up testing in Sarawak as well as quick isolation on top of the current vaccination rollout programme to proper control the surge of positive cases in the state now, stressed Dr Kelvin Yii.
The Bandar Kuching MP said that while the vaccination rate in Sarawak was commendable and statistics had shown that the death rate had also decreased likely due to vaccinations, it did not mean that vaccinated persons cannot carry the virus and be a conduit to spread the disease to others.
He said such persons may spread the virus especially to the yet to be vaccinated community including children and also to those who may be vaccine-resistant and do not develop antibodies even after vaccination.
“Yesterday’s (Aug 10) figures where 31 percent or 260 out of 836 positive cases were below 18-years-old is worrying.
“While I strongly believe vaccinating our children is an important step we need to take, controlling the pandemic in the community where they are exposed to the virus is another,” he said in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
He said this was even more pertinent with the outbreak of the Delta variant and surge of positive cases in the state.
“If not properly controlled, (this) may even mutate further especially among the unvaccinated community.
“That is why we cannot put all eggs into the vaccination basket and neglect other fundamental infectious disease control measures including adequate testing and quick isolation,” said Dr Yii.
He noted that the positive rate in Sarawak was 16.2 percent on Aug 10 and it was 12.7 percent on Aug 9. He pointed out that the average positive rate for the past week stood at 13.4 percent, which was more than double the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recommended rate of five percent.
“If we are not testing enough, we will not isolate fast enough, and the disease will continue to spread in the community. That is why a severe shortage of tests will contribute to the increased number of undetected cases in the community,” he said.
He said this was why the government must be committed to a National Testing Plan which should include large-scale implementation of the ‘Find, Test, Trace, Isolate, and Support’ (FTTIS) methodology to contain the virus and reduce the positive rate to below five percent as proposed in the National Recovery Plan (NRP) itself.
“This mass testing plan should not be for MoH to execute alone but should include all stakeholders including private hospitals, private clinics, factories, workplaces, and individuals self-testing at home,” he said.
He said the government must immediately subsidise these test kits to make them affordable and accessible for all as well as come up with a clear advisory for its usage, including what to do after, and incentivise people to report if there is a positive result.
“That is why I urge both the federal and state governments to ramp up testing here in Sarawak on top of the ongoing vaccination program to properly control the spread of the disease in the state and protect those high-risk groups in the state.
“You cannot excel in one and ignore the other as they are both parts of the same coin when it comes to infectious disease control,” Dr Yii emphasised.
