Health Ministry urged to conduct mass Covid-19 tests in HIDE’s hotspot areas

10 May 2021 • 6:16 PM MYT
Daily Express
Daily Express

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Kuala Lumpur: The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) suggests the Health Ministry (MOH) to conduct mass Covid-19 screening in hotspots areas identified by Hotspots Identification for Dynamic Engagement (HIDE).

Its president, Prof Datuk Dr Subramaniam Muniandy, also proposed that MOH should consider conducting vaccinations en masse, to interrupt the transmission in hotspots.

“Targeted mass screening in these areas should be done to detect infections early and prevent further spread.

“We (MMA) believe the daily cases could be a lot higher as we have not been testing enough. We won't know the true extent of community spread until we test the community for prevalence,” he said in a statement today.

He added that the government should not wait for people to show symptoms, but instead run the Covid-19 testing and immediately isolate those testing positive, while close contacts are traced and tested.

Recently, the government announced that all premises including malls listed in the HIDE system, which identified as a location at risk to the transmission of Covid-19 cases, will be ordered to close for three days.

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