PETALING JAYA: Malaysia managed to keep its excess mortality rate low during the Covid-19 pandemic thanks to good compliance to health protocols, says Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

       The Health director-general said the low rate could be attributed to the country's good public health response since March 2020.

       He noted that an increase in excess mortality rate only occurred during the surge in Covid-19 cases due to the Delta variant wave which hit the country around July and August last year.

       Excess mortality refers to the total deaths from all causes during a crisis (in this instance, the pandemic) above what was expected under normal conditions.

       "What we are seeing is the (result of) compliance to standard operating procedures (SOP) and not just the lockdown.

       "Secondly, during the surge of Covid-19 cases due to the Delta variant, we already started to increase vaccination coverage, especially in the Klang Valley.

       "It shows that we managed to reduce the spike of the Delta variant, and performed better than the expectation of the World Health Organisation (WHO)," he said during a media briefing session on excess mortality rate during Covid-19 in Malaysia on Monday (April 25).

       The figure for excess mortality shows the number of deaths compared to the expected number of deaths based on previous years.

       Other panel members who attended the briefing included Institute for Clinical Research (ICR) director Datuk Dr P. Kalaiarasu and Institute for Public Health's medical officer Dr Shubash Shander Ganapathy.

       The government had placed the country under the Movement Control Order (MCO) starting March 18, 2020 to curb the spread of Covid-19.

       Dr Noor Hisham said compared to the United Kingdom, which had a population about two times larger than Malaysia's, Covid-19 fatalities stood at 140,000 against 35,000 here.

       He added that Malaysia managed to find a balancing point in its measures to curb the spread of Covid-19, resulting in fewer fatalities caused by the virus.

       Meanwhile, Dr Shubash pointed out that between March 2020 and June 2021, Malaysia's excess mortality rate was lower than that of Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain and Italy.

       He said Malaysia's trend in low excess mortality rates was about the same as the projection made by WHO.

       "It is important to determine the true impact of the pandemic.

       "Excess mortality would look at all deaths, both due to Covid-19, and also deaths not from Covid-19," he noted.

       "This will also evaluate how we managed diseases other than Covid-19, the extent to which health services were disrupted and also the impact of the pandemic on the health of the people," he added.