KOTA SAMARAHAN: The Sarawak Infectious Disease Centre (SIDC) to be set up here will be equipped with facilities to erect field hospitals capable of accommodating 1,000 beds.
Education, Innovation and Talent Development Minister Datuk Roland Sagah Wee Inn said the 1,000-bed field hospitals were a pre-emptive approach to respond to the impact of existing and future infectious diseases.
“We just have to be ready. If you remember, we were totally unprepared to face the COVID-19 pandemic. Once it happened, it immediately affected many lives.
“We can never predict these things to happen. It can suddenly appear out of nowhere and infect many people. So this is a situation that we have to be ready for,” he told a press conference after officiating at the site hand-over ceremony for SIDC today.
Sagah explained that the government was also in the process of procuring consultancies and had discussed with various research centres worldwide to properly implement the SIDC.
“These research centres include the ones in Switzerland and United Kingdom,” he added.
The Sarawak Research and Development Council (SRDC), which will manage SIDC, will recruit skilful Sarawakians for the research centre which is expected to be completed by 2024.
“We are looking for more than 20 experts and we also need technicians to run the equipment.
“We still need multidisciplinary people to run (the research centre) and not just actual experts on diseases. This also includes management staff, among others.”
The minister explained that the centre would cater to treating and researching common tropical diseases such as malaria, chikungunya, rabies and hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD).
“However, at the moment, COVID-19 still takes precedence above other common diseases,” he added. The SIDC is sited on a 3.8-acre plot of land adjacent to the Sarawak Heart Centre in Samarahan.
