This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on April 21, 2020

KUALA LUMPUR: Even with the significantly reduced number of daily reported cases, the country’s “war” against the spread of Covid-19 may not even end until a vaccine is found, which may take up to 18 months, according to Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

Noor Hisham pointed to the World Health Organization’s prediction that Malaysia will still be at “war” with Covid-19 even until next year, unless a vaccine for the coronavirus is found and made available to the public.

Until then, the outbreak cannot be ended, but merely contained, with possible sporadic isolated cases in the coming months, he told reporters.

“The war has not been won yet, and neither have we lost. But we have made a significant improvement in terms of reducing the number of daily cases,” he said.

“But we want to see [that] it is brought down to single digits. Maybe we can achieve that single digit within one week but nonetheless, I think all of us need to work together and make sure that we continue to stay at home.

“What is important today (yesterday) is we may be able to reduce the numbers of cases, but not end [the infection],” Noor Hisham added.

He said even after the movement control order is lifted, the ministry of health would advise people to continue staying at home to prevent the spread of the virus.

Besides that, other public health precautions such as social distancing, regularly washing hands and avoiding mass gatherings must still be practised.

He said this “new norm’ may last up to six months. In the meantime, the government will continue to try to minimise infections within communities, by monitoring the incidence of influenza-like illnesses (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI), said Noor Hisham.

The ILI and SARI numbers, he said, are good indicators for the government to plan further actions to deal with the outbreak.