Deciding to maintain the standard operating procedure (SOP) related to COVID-19 for the time being, the Ministry of Health (MOH) will examine seven indicators in the country before making a decision to tighten the SOP if necessary.
Director General of Health Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the Ministry of Health will first monitor the situation in the country and continue to increase public health control before taking any action.
“We will monitor first not only based on hospitalizations but many other indicators that we use such as expected cases, daily cases and so on.
“If the data shows an improvement in all the available indicators, then maybe we will discuss the appropriate action at that time,” he said in the Health Minister’s Engagement Session with the Media here today (January 10).
Dr Noor Hisham said among the indicators that will be seen is the sudden increase in import cases, which is that at this point only three or four import cases are recorded per month and the detection of new variants from sewage sampling and risky places.
“What do we worry about if there is a new variant, we are not sure if our vaccine is effective or not. We will also check with the WHO (World Health Organization) whether there is another variant registration detected or not,” he said.
He said if there is a new variant detected other than Omicron, the Ministry of Health will monitor the extent of infectivity of the variant as well as the level of severity or hospitalization.
Another indicator referred to is the increase in cases of diseases such as influenza (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) at selected health facilities, i.e. if records show a sudden increase in cases, the Ministry of Health will take more precise measures to control it, he said.
He said another indicator is the capacity of the public health service system, i.e. if bed utilization and admission to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for COVID-19 patients exceeds 30 percent.
The indicator that is also monitored is the increase in death cases, which now involves “one figure per day” and if there is a three-figure jump, the Ministry of Health will look at the extent of the severity of the virus, he said.
Yesterday (January 9), Dr Noor Hisham said in a statement that new cases of COVID-19 nationwide dropped 14.2 percent to 3,231 cases in Epidemiological Week 1 (ME 1/2023) which is from Jan 1 to 7, compared to 3,767 cases in the previous ME.
