SUNGAI BULOH: University of Technology Mara Medical Specialist Centre (PPUiTM), which is involved in conducting the Covid-19 detection test, aims to increase its laboratory test capacity to 200 samples a day from tomorrow.
PPUiTM pathology consultant (Medical Microbiology) Prof Dr Ariza Adnan, who also heads the Covid-19 laboratory, said they had been conducting tests on 100 samples a day since the laboratory began operation last April 3.
"We are using about 30 staff, including lecturers, science officers, medical laboratory technologists. We have two shifts at the moment from 8am to 6pm and 2pm to 8pm," she said when met by reporters at the Institute of Medical Molecular Biotechnology (IMMB), PPUiTM, here, yesterday.
She said they would increase the test to 200 samples a day from tomorrow to assist and ease the burden of the Ministry of Health (MOH) in addressing the Covid-19 outbreak.
Last March, Health Director-General Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah was reported to have said that MOH laboratory's capacity to carry out the Covid-19 detection test has been expanded with the assistance of the Ministry of Higher Education (KPT) and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI).
KPT and MOSTI have set up 10 additional diagnostic laboratories at institutions of higher learning, university teaching hospitals (HPUs), including a mobile laboratory that can be deployed to hotspots. -- BERNAMA