Msia's hard work and unique Covid-19 situation may offer a glimmer of hope

MALAYSIA has been carefully monitoring and containing cases of the Covid-19 since it was first discovered on Jan 25.

But the number of cases spiralled after a case, which was initially thought as a sporadic case, was traced to a religious mass gathering (tabligh programme) that had 16,000 participants.

There were 190 new cases detected on Sunday (March 15), the biggest jump in the number of cases in a day. Most of the cases were from the mass gathering which was held from Feb 27 to March 1 at a mosque in Sri Petaling, a suburb in Kuala Lumpur.

This makes a total of 428 cases for Malaysia, with 42 patients recovered and discharged.

Following the spike of cases, six doctors issued a joint statement addressed to the Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham, asking the government to consider a nationwide lockdown. This is to enable the Health Ministry to identify and isolate carriers of the disease and minimise its spread.

Meanwhile, #LockDownMalaysia has been trending on Twitter and as at 7am, there were more than 20,000 tweets.

Do we need a lockdown? Besides its huge ramifications, let's consider the facts.

The Health Ministry has been able to contain the disease by detecting those with fever or flu-like symptoms at the country's entry points and tracing those who had been in direct contact with confirmed cases.

In fact, from Feb 12, the Health Ministry has started conducting Covid-19 surveillance to detect sporadic cases in the country by testing almost all patients with severe pneumonia (severe acute respiratory syndrome or SARI) in its hospitals nationwide for Covid-19, as well as testing those in health clinics for influenza-like-illness (ILI).

The surveillance is to detect infected persons who had neither travelled to affected areas or countries nor had close contact with a confirmed case.

A sporadic case indicator is for the ministry to find out if the disease has gone into the community and could not be traced to a source or cluster.

On Wednesday (March 11), the ministry said that a sporadic case was detected after testing a total of 600 samples, 138 for SARI and 462 for ILI.

Many Malaysians were anxious as this could mean that it could be widespread but the following day (March 12), the ministry managed to trace it to a cluster at the mass religious gathering and retracted the "sporadic case" classification.

To everyone's shock, it involved 16,000 people, with 14,500 of them Malaysians.

From nine new cases on Thursday (March 12) including the one case from the religious gathering, the numbers spiralled daily and by Sunday (March 15), there were 190 new cases detected, the biggest jump in the number of cases in a day. Most of the cases were from the mass gathering at the mosque.

This makes a total of 428 cases for Malaysia, compared to 158 on Thursday.

But the medical teams worked around-the-clock to trace the 14,500 Malaysians and on March 14, within two days after the discovery of the first case linked to the gathering, the ministry said it had screened 4.942 individuals from the gathering and 1,634 of them were found to have respiratory tract infection symptoms and samples were taken for Covid-19 tests.

From those examined, 137 were referred to hospitals for further management, while 2,932 were placed under 14-day home surveillance from the date they last join the gathering.

At the speed that the medical teams handled the cases, is there a possibility that all the cases, including close contacts, can be traced soon? Would a lockdown be necessary?

However, if it is necessary, it should be just for a couple of weeks to enable the doctors to trace the rest of the participants and their close contacts.

The short lockdown duration is in view of Malaysia's unique case - it is not likely to have a sporadic case yet, gauging from its zero Covid-19 cases from its surveillance system (SARI and ILI).

If there is no sporadic case in Malaysia, it is an indication that the infection has not gone into the community. That means the infection at the gathering is likely to have been brought in from outside. This is an important factor to consider.

If the infection has not gone into the community, is there a possibility of it still being contained, although it may be a herculean task?

That requires getting all relevant government agencies, including the police, to help track down the individuals.

The ANN reported on Thursday (March 12) that around 90 Singaporeans had attended the gathering while the Straits Times has reported on Sunday (March 15) that four of them have Covid-19.

Can the health authority trace if the infection had come from Singapore or other countries and consider a short-term travel ban against those countries?

It should also not allow Malaysians to travel to Singapore or other countries affected during the short travel ban.

But both countries have appeared reluctant to impose a travel ban especially when Singapore had many cases in the earlier stages, as this could cause a dent in the Singaporean workforce and economy while many Malaysians may lose their jobs.

It is estimated that more than 300,000 Malaysians travel across the Johor-Singapore Causeway every day with most going to Singapore for work.

But both countries have to find a way to address Covid-19 so that each does not add to the spike of cases of the other country.

Meanwhile, the borders between the northern states and Thailand, and Sabah with the Philippines should be addressed too to ensure that any cases from there do not enter Malaysia.

Whatever is decided, the government needs to address the spiralling number of cases fast before we end up like Italy or Spain.