Sabah health department focused on providing best treatment for Covid-19 patients

Sabah Health and People's Wellbeing Minister Datuk Frankie Poon (third left) receiving donation from Ma-Zhong Friendship Association Sabah president Dr Oh Ei Sun (third right). Also present is Sabah Health director Datuk Dr Christina Rundi (right). - Pic courtesy of Sabah Health department/Sabah Health and People's Wellbeing Ministry.

By Olivia Miwil - April 9, 2020 @ 11:57am

KOTA KINABALU: There has been no surge of Covid-19 cases in the state as health authorities here remain focused on treating existing patients, said health department director Datuk Dr Christina Rundi.

“There has been no spike in cases and this gives us the opportunity to focus on providing better treatment.

“We want to ensure our patients are completely recovered and not become a source of infection later.

“Some patients may take longer to be discharged as we want to be doubly sure they are totally free of the virus,” she said, adding that healthcare professionals were treating some patients for more than 14 days.

Dr Christina was speaking to reporters after handing over face masks donated by the Ma Zhong Friendship Association Sabah to state Health and People’s Wellbeing minister Datuk Frankie Poon at Wisma Tun Fuad Stephens, here.

Present was Ma-Zhong Friendship Association Sabah president Dr Oh Ei Sun.

As of yesterday, the rate of recovery in the state was 33 per cent, which is 82 out of 248 patients.

For the past three days, the number of recoveries in the state outnumbered new Covid-19 cases.

Dr Christina said two teams of 30 people worked around-the-clock at the Kota Kinabalu laboratory to complete the backlog of samples for Covid-19 confirmation.

In a span of two days, she said the task force would try to clear 4,600 samples.

Earlier, she also thanked various donors, including the Ma-Zhong Friendship Association Sabah for providing medical necessities and test kits to the Health department.