Malaysia Imports Large Quantity of Korean COVID-19 Test Kits... Testing High-Risk Groups

"This Weekend, 100,000 Additional Diagnostic Kits to Arrive"

[Image source=EPA Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Jin-gyu Lee] The Malaysian government has imported a large quantity of Korean-made rapid diagnostic kits (antigen tests) for COVID-19 and has begun testing high-risk groups.

According to foreign media including the Malay Mail on the 6th, Noor Hisham Abdullah, Director-General of Health at the Malaysian Ministry of Health, stated at a briefing the day before, "50,000 COVID-19 diagnostic kits imported from Korea have arrived," adding, "10,000 kits were distributed each to Sarawak and Sabah states, and 15,000 kits each to Johor state and Kuala Lumpur Airport."

Director-General Abdullah further said, "An additional 100,000 kits will arrive this weekend," and added, "The government has considered purchasing 1 million diagnostic kits from Korea."

At a briefing on the 16th of last month, he announced, "Testing of Korea's SD Biosensor product showed a sensitivity of 84.4% and specificity of 100%," and stated, "We will use this antigen rapid test kit." Sensitivity refers to the rate of correctly identifying positive patients, while specificity refers to the rate of correctly identifying negative individuals.

The Malaysian government imposed a movement control order starting March 18 to curb the spread of COVID-19. As the daily number of new confirmed cases dropped to double digits from mid-last month, most economic activities were allowed starting from the 4th. As of the previous day, Malaysia has a total of 6,383 confirmed cases and 106 deaths.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.