KLANG: The majority of those brought in dead (BID) to hospitals were unaware they had Covid-19, says Khairy Jamaluddin.

       In disclosing the worrying trend, the Health Minister said the families of these BID cases had also been in the dark until post-mortems were done.

       “We analysed data from Feb 5 to Feb 21 and found that 91 % of the 113 BID cases had not known they had contracted Covid-19,” he told reporters after launching the national level World Hearing Day 2022 at Serdang Hospital.

       Due to this, Khairy urged those suffering, especially the elderly, to be immediately taken to hospital if they displayed any Covid-19 symptom such as fever, flu or cough.

       Sabah recorded the highest number with 35 BID cases – all of which had gone undetected for Covid-19 prior to death.

       This was closely followed by Selangor with 25 BID cases, of which 19 had gone undiagnosed.

       “Based on our survey, more than 50% of those who died were not referred to health facilities quickly as they were unaware of the infection,” said Khairy.

       He added it was already too late when they finally realised it was Covid-19.

       He also urged the 350,000 elderly SinoVac recipients who have not received their booster shots yet to do it as soon as possible.

       He reminded them that Covid-19 can kill elderly people with comorbidities.

       On another matter, Khairy said he would be meeting the parents of 13-year-old Revnesh Kumar in his office today.

       The teen reportedly died last month, almost three weeks after being vaccinated.

       Khairy added the post-mortem report has already been released and he would be sharing the findings with the deceased’s parents.

       “I will be meeting the parents in my office tomorrow morning and I feel it is best I meet with them first before anything is publicly announced,” he added.

       The Health Ministry also announced a change in how the daily Covid-19 death toll is reported.

       It said fatalities will be announced according to the figures received from the field on a daily basis.

       “This is because previously, death reports received were only announced after case registration at the state level was completed.

       “This sometimes took a while, causing a ‘backlog’ of Covid-19 death cases.

       “To ensure the timeliness of deaths being reported, cases now must be reported within 72 hours of death as stipulated by the Health Ministry,” it said in a statement.

       A total of 115 Covid-19 deaths were reported on March 2, out of which 62 occurred within the last three days.

       The ministry said the remaining 53 cases occurred prior to the 72-hour mark.

       “This figure is the highest reported during the Omicron wave and the highest since Oct 7, 2021, when there were 132 deaths.

       “The last time a three-digit death toll was reported was on Oct 12 last year with 103 Covid-19 fatalities,” the ministry said in a statement yesterday.

       It reiterated that the number of deaths announced for March 2 is not the number of deaths that occur in one day.

       “As mentioned, a death report is made within 72 hours and for cases that require further investigation, such as post-mortem studies or laboratory tests, it can take up to four to six weeks to be reported,” the ministry added.

       The Health Ministry also said that moving forward, a holistic approach must be taken, especially in looking at mortality data.

       “Mortality does not only refer to the daily death rate, but more importantly to the Case Fatality Rate (CFR).

       “This is because when we head towards an endemic point of view, the CFR is an accurate indicator of mortality when providing a clearer picture of the current epidemic situation.

       “Death rates are typically used as a measure of disease severity and are often used for prognosis (predicting disease course or outcome), whereas low CFR rates indicate low disease severity.

       “It can be used to assess the effects of new treatments and the severity of the disease decreases as treatment improves.

       “The CFR is calculated by dividing the number of deaths from a particular disease in a given period of time by the number of individuals diagnosed with that disease during that same period of time

       “The resulting ratio is then multiplied by 100 to produce a percentage,” it added.