PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia aims to ramp up its resources in the battle against the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic by increasing its RT-PCR testing capacity up to 150,000 samples daily.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said this could be made possible following the integrated cooperation between the public and private sectors.
This, he said, involves the Health Ministry, armed forces, Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry, public and private higher education institutions as well as the private sector.
"We have 68 labs and when we look into the labs, we realised that the testing capacity could be increased at certain labs to 100,000.
"We are also looking into setting up new labs. For example, we have implemented and set up the facilities in Tawau and Lahad Datu.
"As for other hospitals in Sarawak or in other states, we need to look into the capacity and increase the number of labs. Our target is to achieve 150,000 testing capacity a day.
"We need to look into how we can maximise the usage of the facilities and human resources via this partnership."
Dr Noor Hisham said Malaysia had only 23 labs in the early stage and testing and lab facilities were increased following private sector engagement.