COVID-19: Sabah wants outstanding test samples to be promptly processed

KOTA KINABALU, Oct 20 -- The Sabah government hopes the processing of the still outstanding COVID-19 screening test samples could be completed in the next three to four days following the appointment of three private hospitals and laboratory to help speed up the work, as announced on Monday.

Sabah Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said he was confident the three medical institutions would be able to help the Sabah Health Department (JKNS) to complete processing the 10,400 outstanding samples.

‘’I have announced that we have appointed three private hospitals and laboratory for the purpose.

‘’We suppose the cases of the outstanding samples will be resolved, given their ability to process more samples that had been sent.

‘’We hope the outstanding samples can be settled in three or four days, meaning after this we expect lower statistics,’’ he told a media conference at Wisma Innoprise, here, tonight.

Masidi said the COVID-19 statistics in Sabah which were announced today to a certain extent was contributed by the outstanding screening test samples.

Earlier, Masidi said, based on the report of the JKNS, there were 673 new cases recorded today, with three deaths.

He said there were 8,755 cumulative COVID-19 cases in Sabah, and until to date, 3,223 patients had recovered while 5,466 more were being treated in wards in Sabah.

Masidi also reminded the people of Sabah to continue to be disciplined by complying with the standard operating procedure (SOP) such as wearing masks, physical distancing, regularly washing hands and not visiting public places unnecessarily.

Non-government organisations (NGO) and the private sector providing food to the needy groups were also reminded to comply with the SOP especially in the red zone to ensure they were healthy and safe and to sever the spread of COVID-19, he said.

In the meantime, Masidi said work to distribute food baskets from the state government to the target groups was proceeding smoothly and, until to date, 62,002 baskets had been distributed. 

-- BERNAMA