KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has welcomed healthcare experts to be part of the newly-formed Health and Scientific Covid-19 Advisory Group, enabling them to share insights on how to optimise Malaysia's efforts to fight the virus.
Muhyiddin, in inviting nominees among the healthcare experts who had recently written to him for a meeting, also promised to consider all their suggestions to curb the spike of Covid-19 and contain the virus.
He said following the Proclamation of Emergency nationwide until Aug 1, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri'ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah has promulgated the Emergency (Essential Powers) Ordinance 2021 which allows the government to manage the pandemic more effectively.
"As we continually consider these issues, I would like to welcome a nomination of representatives from the signatories of your letter to meet with the Health Minister, my Special Advisor on Public Health and myself, together with the relevant senior officials.
"I would be open to listen to your advice and ideas so we can all collectively contribute to reduce the number of infections and subsequent impact on the lives of the rakyat.
"I agree to form a Health and Scientific Covid-19 Advisory Group which will advise the government on matters related to Covid-19 pandemic management and I urge you to nominate suitable candidates to be members of this advisory group," said Muhyiddin last night.
Muhyiddin said this when addressing an open letter sent to him by a group of health experts dated Jan 7.
The letter, undersigned by over 30 healthcare experts specialising in various fields, expressed their apprehension and concern for the current status of the Covid-19 outbreak in the country which showed no signs of abating despite the enforcement of the Movement Control Order and other health interventions.
They had proposed 10 urgent and critical actions lest Malaysia slip into Covid-19 Intensive Care, including efforts to ramp up testing with triaged, mass and frequent testing regiments, utilising inexpensive Antigen Rapid Test Kit (RTK-Ag) instead of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) to help slow the transmission of Covid-19.
They had also moved for early RTK-Ag diagnosis of cases within 24-hours which would enable rapid isolation of cases and facilitate prompt contact tracing.