KOTA KINABALU – The government will set up two more Covid-19 testing laboratories in the Sabah East Coast region to deal with the large number of test samples there.
Sabah official Covid-19 spokesman Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said to this end the Ministry of Health (MOH) has provided allocations to set up the two laboratories at Tawau District Hospital and Lahad District Hospital.
"Both of these laboratories were capable of running 200 tests a day and are expected to commence operations in early December 2020," he said.
Meanwhile, Masidi said the State Health Department has also received an additional 200,000 units of RTK-Antigen test kits from the MOH.
"So far 117,825 test kits have already been distributed to hospitals, area health offices as well as district health offices.”
At the same time a temporary laboratory for Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Covid-19 tests was also established at the Kubota Health Clinic, Tawau to accomodate PCR testing for the Tawau district.
"This laboratory is expected to be fully operational by next week."
Based on a report by the Sabah Health Department, the number of new Covid-19 cases today in Sabah is 678.
The number of deaths is at 12, comprising nine deaths in Kota Kinabalu and one each in Kudat, Tawau and Sandakan.
The cumulative number of Covid-19 cases in the state is at 16,873 and there was no increase in red zones and no new clusters reported in the state today.
A total of 549 Covid-19 patients were also discharged from the hospital and low risk quarantine and treatment centres.
A total of 3,139 patients are currently receiving treatment, and the number of Covid-19 patients in the ICU is 79 people, while 21 patients need breathing assistance.
Masidi said as predicted earlier, the number of cases for the Kota Kinabalu area have risen sharply these past few days due to the number of Covid cases at the Menggatal temporary detention centre.
“Today, it became a reality when 229 of the 341 new cases in Kota Kinabalu came from this cluster.
“The positive cases for the Kepayan Prison Cluster have also increased by 42 cases today.”
Masidi said distribution of food basket assistance to target groups is proceeding smoothly and to date, a total of 131,052 food baskets have been distributed. – The Vibes, November 3, 2020
