The IMR's Infectious Disease Research Centre Virology Unit chief said it was vital to quickly deliver results, enabling health authorities to immediately carry out contact tracing if results come back positive.
"We have also trained workers at 12 designated hospitals and five public health laboratories nationwide to carry out Covid-19 tests," said Dr Ravindran.
Dr Ravindran said they used the World Health Organisation Covid-19 reagents to carry out the test at a cost of RM100 per sample. "IMR officers succeeded in optimising the real-time RT-PCR Covid-19 test on Jan 22, and we supplied the reagent to the Sungai Buloh National Public Health Laboratory on Jan 24 to test the first three positive cases detected in Malaysia.
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