Health Ministry mass purchasing PPE, issues guidelines for its usage

PUTRAJAYA: The Health Ministry is mass purchasing personal protective equipment (PPE) to ensure adequate supply for the Covid-19 crisis.

Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the Ministry was working with the National Security Council, National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) and other federal agencies to make sure that the issue was given priority.

He added that the Health Ministry was tracking its PPE stock via an online database, which was handled by officers in the state health departments, hospitals and district health offices.

“The list of names, telephone numbers and email addresses of the officers of each state have been disseminated so that the public and other staff members can provide feedback should there be a shortage in PPE, ” he said.

Dr Hisham, who was at a press conference in Putrajaya on Tuesday (April 14), also welcomed donations from the private sector and NGOs for the PPEs.

“We have enough equipment, but we need PPE because the use of the PPE is continuous, especially as we see an increase of its usage by three to 10 times.

“As such, we need to ensure that our stock of (PPE) is always enough for more than two weeks.

“For example, we are facing difficulty in procuring N95 masks, as the United States is no longer exporting them.

“So we now have KN95 masks from China, which has given us 100,000 of such masks, ” he said.

He also said that the Health Ministry personnel would have to follow the guidelines on the appropriate use of PPE.

“There are those who are wearing full PPE when they do not need to, so we must make sure to ration according to the guidelines that we have.

“We hope that the medical frontliners will adhere to the guidelines, ” he said.

Dr Hisham had previously appealed for donations of PPE, saying the Ministry needed more stock as its supply was enough to last for just another two weeks.