WHO representative in Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore Dr Jacqueline Lo Ying-Ru said the country’s infrastructure and a well-trained workforce to provide high-quality healthcare had also contributed towards this end.
In a commentary section in WHO’s website, entitled “A country united in the face of the pandemic”, she said in the years prior to the pandemic, the government and health authorities had taken great steps to bolster Malaysia’s health security and multi-sectoral response capacity for health emergencies and disaster preparedness.
“These measures included preparation for and participation in a joint external evaluation of the International Health Regulations core capacities with WHO in late 2019 to help identify the most critical gaps within human and animal health systems and the containment of environmental hazards,” she said.
“Identification of gaps enabled the prioritisation of needs and opportunities for enhanced preparedness and response.
“All of these components have played a crucial role in Malaysia’s initial response to the pandemic.”
Lo said in the early stages of the outbreak, in February, Malaysia invested in increasing access to quality testing, the number of critical care beds and available ventilators.
Health services were swiftly enhanced to meet both anticipated and emerging demands as the government mobilised recruitment and redistribution of healthcare personnel, according to high workload areas.
She said Malaysia also took immediate steps to curtail transmission of the virus with the implementation of the movement control order, which succeeded in helping reduce the number of Covid-19 cases by half in April.
“Following key WHO recommendations to ‘test, treat and track’ the population for the virus, Malaysia enforced the ‘search, test, isolate, treat and quarantine’ strategy to uncover cases in the community.
“It also took stringent measures regarding quarantine and isolation of confirmed and suspected cases,” she said.
Lo said the WHO Representative Office also worked closely with the health ministry and partners to provide critical support in the areas of partner coordination, information and planning, technical expertise, operational support and logistics, in which WHO supplied the initial test kits before it became commercially available and provided testing protocols for diagnosis in March.
She said significant measures were taken by the government to communicate with the public proactively.
“The Malaysian government went to great lengths to ensure a comprehensive approach to risk communication and community engagement, working to establish trust with the population,” she said.
“From the early days, the government promoted trusted sources of information to ensure the public had access to timely and accurate information on the latest Covid-19 developments.”
She said ongoing vigilance and prevention are the only ways to stop virus transmission until a safe and effective vaccine is available.
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