PUTRAJAYA – The Emergency (Essential Powers) Ordinance 2021 gazetted on January 14 is one of the important instruments in optimising the capability of the Health Ministry (MoH) to manage the Covid-19 pandemic, said Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba.
He stressed that the emergency and the five strategies laid out by MoH were effective.
The five strategies are breaking the chain of infection, reducing fatalities, strengthening diagnostics and surveillance for early detection, achieving herd immunity and increasing awareness and embracing the new normal.
Dr Adham said the emergency allowed the private sector’s involvement in helping the government to contain the pandemic, among others.
“During the first and second movement control order (MCO), general practitioners (GP) had no authority to do so (carry out testing) but with the emergency ordinance, those registered with MoH can now authorise HSO (home surveillance and observation), are empowered to run CACs (Covid-19 assessment centres), treat and monitor Category 1 and 2 Covid-19 patients.
“Besides that, the ordinance also allows private health facilities to be used in treating Covid-19 patients and ensures the maximum fee for detection tests conducted by laboratories and private health facilities are set at RM150 for RT-PCR test, RM60 for RTK Antigen and RM50 for RTK antibodies in the peninsula,” he told reporters here today.
Dr Adham said apart from enabling the acquisition of important national assets, the ordinance also allowed medical practitioners to be stationed in areas other than those specified in the Annual Practicing Certificate.
Meanwhile, when asked about the National Recovery Plan, he said the first phase this month was implemented when the number of daily cases breached 4,000 and the capacity of health services was at a critical level.
Dr Adham said to move from the first to the second phase, scheduled to run for the duration of the coming two months, the average number of Covid-19 cases should be between 2,000 and 4,000 for seven consecutive days and the utilisation rate for beds at intensive care units (ICU) should range between 50% to 70%, adding the vaccine administration must cover at least 10% of the population.
“The rehabilitation plan can be extended to the third phase, from September to October, when the average cases for a seven-day period drops to less than 2,000 but remains over 500, response capacity is adequate with ICU bed utilisation rate is less than 50% and vaccinations have reached 40%,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr Adham said under the fourth phase, the seven-day rate of Covid-19 cases should be less than 500, ICU bed utilisation rate is less than 50% and vaccination coverage has reached about 60%.
He said before the enforcement of the current MCO on June 1, the ICU bed utilisation rate had reached 108% but dropped to 94% after two weeks of the enhanced restrictions.
Meanwhile, Dr Adham said the threshold value for the seven-day average of Covid-19 cases was set based on positivity rate, R-naught value, the emergence of new variants and the capability of the health service system including admissions to hospitals and low-risk quarantine and treatment centres.
It also depended on the capacity of these premises to treat Covid-19 cases as well as the availability of health personnel in ICUs, the capability to conduct case investigations in the field either at hospitals or homes, to make daily follow-ups on positive cases placed under HSO and to carry out close contact investigations, he said. – Bernama, June 19, 2021
