Friday 29 Mar 2024
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PUTRAJAYA (April 22): A government-to-government (G2G) arrangement is now being worked out between Malaysia and South Korea to speed up the delivery of antigen rapid test kits to Malaysia, according to Ministry of Health (MoH) director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

For the time being, the antigen rapid test kits are expected to arrive in Malaysia at the earliest by Friday, or latest by next week.

"The procurement has been done, but we are now going through logistics issues. Also, there is a high demand for the rapid test kits, not only from Malaysia, but globally," Dr Noor Hisham told reporters during his daily briefing on the Covid-19 situation in the country, today.

“So, now we are going through G2G, with the help of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the South Korean Embassy, to see how best we can actually facilitate the import of this test kits," Dr Noor Hisham added.

Last Thursday, the DG said MoH had approved the use of antigen rapid test kits from South Korea that will help the ministry achieve its target capacity of 16,500 Covid-19 tests per day, nationwide.

At the time, he said the ministry had already placed a procurement order with South Korean firm SD Biosensor and that the test kits might arrive as early as this week.

Meanwhile, he said today that the ministry has mooted the idea to have mobile biosafety cabinets placed in areas that are under Enhanced Movement Control Order (EMCO) to help expedite the process of screening all the individuals in those areas.

A biosafety cabinet is an enclosed but ventilated laboratory workspace for safely working with materials contaminated with pathogens. The space is used to store and process the antigen rapid test kits.

"By using this rapid test kit, we can get the test results within 30-45 minutes. And we can do 15 tests at one go.

“So, we hope that once we get the antigen rapid test kits — the advantage is that it has a very fast turnaround time — we can do the tests at point-of-care, provided we have the biosafety cabinet," he said. 

Besides that, he said the ministry is also considering placing the biosafety cabinets in airports to facilitate Covid-19 screenings there.

"That is how we are going to complement the Covid-19 screenings [with the antigen rapid test kits]," he added.

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