12 public hospitals and public labs equipped to test for virus

The Health Ministry has upgraded 12 public hospitals and public health laboratories throughout the country since Jan 30 with the capacity to carry out real-time reverse transcriptasepolymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests to detect the novel coronavirus (2019-nCov).

Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said these laboratories included the National Public Health Laboratory (MKAK) in Sungai Buloh, MKA Ipoh, MKA Kota Kinabalu, MKA Kota Baru and MKA Johor Baru.

“This capacity has also been extended to the private laboratory network through training provided by MKAK Sungai Buloh on Feb 6,” he said in a statement yesterday.

Dr Noor Hisham said at the beginning, the virology unit of the Infectious Disease Research Centre, Institute of Medical Research (IMR) was the only laboratory directly involved with conducting diagnostic tests to detect 2019-nCoV in Malaysia.

On Jan 3, the laboratory made preparations to face the possibility of the spread of 2019-nCoV where a reagent to detect coronavirus using the conventional RT-PCR method was prepared.

“On Jan 11, scientists from China released information on the genetics of 2019-nCoV. This enabled officials from the IMR’s virology unit to come up with the reagent sequence known as ‘primers and probes specific for 2019-nCoV’ on the same day.

“Several days later, the World Health Organisation also released the protocol for real-time RT-PCR 2019-nCoV and this protocol is almost similar to that used by the IMR,” he said.

Dr Noor Hisham said the reagent to identify the 2019-nCoV arrived at IMR’s laboratory on Jan 21, and at the same time the University Malaya Medical Centre shared a virus from the same family as deactivated 2019-nCoV to be used as a positive control.

On Jan 22, officials from the IMR successfully conducted optimisation tests for real-time RT-PCR 2019nCoV and this reagent was supplied to the MKAK Sungai Buloh on Jan 24 to test contact samples in Johor, which enabled detection of the first positive case among close contacts.

“On Jan 25, the IMR laboratory also detected the first positive case among patients under investigation (PUI),” he said.

Dr Noor Hisham said that each day, as early as 7am, the staff on call would receive samples from the hospitals and would continue conducting the tests so that the results could be released within 24 hours.

“However, most of the test results are ready before the 24-hour period,” he said.

Dr Hisham said only staff who underwent the competency test and training on personal protective equipment were allowed to conduct the tests.

He said the staff would receive the samples and record it in the log book. He added that the sample would then be taken to the Biosafety Laboratory on Level 2 where the staff would put it through the realtime RT-PCR 2019-nCoV. — Bernama