PETALING JAYA: The health ministry has been urged to consider enforcing the use of the MySejahtera app again to monitor Covid-19 patients amid a surge in cases in recent weeks.
In a joint statement, former health minister Khairy Jamaluddin and former deputy international trade and industry minister Ong Kian Ming said the ministry should also analyse the recent Covid-19 data to look for new patterns of outbreaks based on location and other patient demographics.
Covid-19 cases have been on the rise with 12,757 cases reported for the week ending Dec 9. This represented an 88% increase from the 6,796 cases reported the week before.
Most of the cases did not require hospitalisation.
Khairy, the former Rembau MP, and Ong, who was Bangi MP, also called for the authorities to re-instate the test, report, isolate, inform, and seek (TRIIS) framework.
“(This is) to alert the public that they should take preventive measures and for the public sector to be prepared for the possibility of a new wave of Covid-19 infections.
They also urged the ministry to work closely with the finance ministry for the procurement of the latest variants of booster vaccines available in the market.
“At the same time, the health ministry should start to reactive the vaccination ecosystem through the private and public clinics and hospitals.”
They said it was also important for the health ministry to work closely with the human resources and investment, trade and industry ministries to detect patterns of outbreaks among factory workers, with inspections at their living quarters.
“One of the reasons for the ‘factory clusters’ that took place during the pandemic was the fact that many of these workers, mostly foreign, were cramped into housing that was overcrowded and without proper ventilation.
“Strong action must be taken against those companies which still house their foreign workers in poor conditions which are not compliant with international labour standards.”
They also urged the health ministry to publish the number of Covid-19 fatalities and other key statistics daily to keep the public informed and to encourage them to take their booster shots.
