Covid-19: Reopening of PKRC at MAEPS to enable joint effort to fight pandemic, says doctor

SERDANG: The reopening of the Covid-19 Quarantine and Treatment Centre (PKRC) at the Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang (MAEPS) is to enable a joint effort to fight Covid-19 in the Klang Valley, says Dr Ridzuan Mohd Isa.

The Assistant Commander 1 Unified Command Centre (UCC) said that the PKRC – which has since been renamed as the PKRC Central Region (PKRC Zon Wilayah Tengah) – will allow for a centralised effort in combating the disease in this region.

"This time around, the PKRC ZWT is established to help handle Covid-19 cases in the Klang Valley since currently most of the hospitals have started to receive non-Covid-19 patients as well,” said Dr Ridzuan.

"The PKRC was introduced upon the request from the Health Ministry to help handle Covid-19 cases from Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Selangor,” he added.

He said that if the number of Covid-19 cases was looked at in totality, a unified effort is needed due to the high volume of people in the Klang Valley.

Speaking after a tour of the PKRC at Hall A at the MAEPS on Wednesday (March 2), Dr Ridzuan added that the PKRC ZWT is open to help patients from other states should they be instructed to do so by the Ministry.

The PKRC ZWT, which was reopened on Feb 25 currently, has a total of 90 patients.

Dr Ridzuan said the PKRC can accommodate up to 850 people and would only accept patients in Category 1, 2A and 2B.

There are about 363 medical and other supporting staff assigned to the centre.

Maeps 2.0 was closed on Feb 8 after operating for 14 months and treating 166,072 Covid-19 patients who were in categories 1 to 4.