With some 2.5 million foreign workers in the country, health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said “obviously”, the ministry would not have enough kits to test the community in one go.
However, he said it would focus on foreign workers in Selangor and the federal territory.
“This is our priority. This is what we call a targeted approach.
“With that, we have the capacity. It will take time, surely, but at least we will be able to test them,” he said at his daily briefing here.
Noor Hisham was responding to claims by doctors who alleged that some private clinics have not received test kits from Socso.
Putrajaya recently announced that all foreign workers in the country would have to be screened for Covid-19 following a spike in cases among construction workers in Ampang.
Senior Minister for Security Ismail Sabri Yaakob said this was to prevent another cluster from emerging.
Last night, the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) said such testing risks becoming a “logistical nightmare” and wondered if the health ministry’s laboratories would be able to cope with such a high volume of test samples in a short time.
Noor Hisham also said that the living conditions of foreign workers contributed to the spread of the virus among the community.
“They live crammed together in houses or apartments. They also work in different sectors, like construction or wholesale markets, but stay together,” he said when asked if the Covid-19 spread among foreign workers was due to the lack of immunisation.
He went on to reveal that to date, the ministry had tested 22,339 foreigners and 4.4% of them, or 986, had tested positive.
The health ministry is currently treating 457 foreigners, four of whom are in the intensive care unit, Noor Hisham said. Another 525 have recovered. Only four Covid-19 deaths were recorded among foreigners.
The ministry will now focus on foreigners in the red zone first, Noor Hisham said. “We will screen them in the near future.”
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