PETALING JAYA: The Covid-19 battleground has now shifted to states outside the Klang Valley that are facing a growing number of infections.

       Besides speeding up the vaccination programme, health experts called for urgent measures to clamp down on such cases.

       Universiti Malaya professor of epidemiology and public health Prof Dr Sanjay Rampal said strategies must be tailored and localised to the specific communities within a region.

       “It is important to establish clear, responsive and engaging communications with the local community.

       “The current rise in cases is unique in that each region may have engaged in a different manner due to differences in local communities.

       “For instance, communities in rural Sabah will have different needs compared to Johor,” he added.

       Prof Sanjay said the healthcare systems in different areas must be on the lookout for any red flags and be ready to respond nimbly.

       “The warning flags for an overwhelmed healthcare system should be derived from upstream indicators such as delayed isolation of cases and quarantine of close contacts by the district health offices, rather than lack of oxygen capacity in hospitals.

       “It is already too late if we wait for the hospitals to be filled up before taking decisive mitigative action,” he said.

       He added that it was vital to maintain an efficient household isolation and quarantine system.

       The government, he said, should also consider deploying government staff from other ministries to the Health Ministry to help with Covid-19 preventive activities.

       On Aug 1, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya together made up 49.5% of total new infections recorded that day.

       A month later on Aug 31, the Klang Valley’s share of daily new cases had dropped to 25.8% of the nationwide total.

       In the same time period, Sabah saw the number of its cases doubling and its proportion of new infections shot up from 5.8% on Aug 1 to 12.4% on Aug 31.

       Sarawak also saw its numbers quadrupling with its share of new cases increasing from 3.4% on Aug 1 to 10.9% on Aug 31, while Johor’s proportion of new cases grew from 6.1% to 10.3% and its number of cases also doubled within the month.

       International Islamic University Malaysia epidemiologist Prof Dr Jamalludin Ab Rahman said the government was already taking steps to stem the rise in infections in non-Klang Valley states.

       For instance, while vaccination is a key tool to pandemic response, he said contact tracing efforts by the the authorities must also continue.

       “When there are many clusters, the trace, test and isolate process must be done. The government can mobilise relevant healthcare personnel and include assets like ambulances.

       “The government should also continue to empower people to be actively involved in managing outbreaks, which includes assisting NGOs to educate the community as well as getting involved in contact tracing,” he added.

       Prof Jamalludin said the government is facing severe limitations in terms of vaccine supply, though it is already beginning to mobilise available stocks to high-need states.

       “Next is to ensure that accessibility to the vaccination programme is evaluated on a state-to-state basis because not all states have the same problem.

       “States like Sabah may need more proactive measures where the vaccination team may need to go and meet the people,” he added.

       Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob previously said he targeted a vaccination rate of at least 50% among the adult population for the six states by the end of September.

       With reports on vaccine shortages in several states, he has instructed the relevant ministries to use the vaccine stocks at hand to be deployed instead of waiting for the arrival of vaccine shipments.

       The number of daily doses administered has also been dwindling, with 261,768 given out on Aug 31 compared to the 480,122 doses administered on Aug 1.