By Ida Nadirah Ibrahim
SHAH ALAM, May 17 — Free mass community screenings should be held in Kuala Lumpur as the federal territory has recorded over 300 new Covid-19 cases for three consecutive days from May 14 to May 16.
In a joint statement today, nine Pakatan Harapan MPs had urged the Federal Territories Minister to follow suit the Selangor government’s free testing programme, which had identified 80 per cent of asymptomatic individuals aged between 20 and 40 years old through the initiative held from May 8 to 11.
The people’s representatives said that the surge in number in the federal territory should be an eye-opener for the minister to act aggressively and implement a new approach to bring down the number of infections in Kuala Lumpur.
“The screening programme would be able to detect individuals who may be silent carriers of the Covid-19 infection, which are those who are tested positive without symptoms but are at risk of spreading others.
“We are prepared to help the ministry in spreading the awareness of the targeted community screenings to the residents within our respective constituencies so that we can contain the spread of Covid-19 together and reduce the number of cases,” the statement read.
The MPs said that to ensure the success of the screening operation, the ministry must cooperate with the Health Ministry to enable the immediate upgrade of the capacity and facilities of government-owned hospital laboratories or any laboratories that are dedicated to conduct the lab tests.
“This is important to ensure that new variants can be detected more efficiently as well as to produce faster results.
“With the recent spike in cases and Covid-19 related deaths, several factors such as the number of health workers and volunteers, sufficient equipment, internet access as well as suitable locations have to be taken into account by the Health Minister before the community screening operation kicks off,” the statement read.
The statement was co-signed by Cheras MP Tan Kok Wai, Bukit Bintang MP Fong Kui Lun, Seputuh MP Teresa Kok, Wangsa Maju MP Dr Tan Yee Kew, Lembah Pantai MP Fahmi Fadzil, Setiawangsa MP Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, Batu MP P. Prabakaran, Kepong MP Lim Lip Eng, and Segambut MP Hannah Yeoh.
Yesterday, Kuala Lumpur registered 342 Covid-19 cases out of the total 3,780 daily cases, 398 infections on Saturday, and 306 cases on Friday.
