KUCHING: The number of people tested positive for Covid-19 in the country is expected to rise to 6,000 by mid-April given the current trend, said Federation of Private Medical Practitioners’ Associations Malaysia (FPMPAM).
“This would mean that the pool of infectious cases in the community would easily reach tens, if not hundreds of thousands,” said the federation in a press statement yesterday.
FPMPAM noted that the only commonly-used medication that had been shown to have some effect in Covid-19 patients had been chloroquine and its derivative, hydroxychloroquine.
According to the federation, this is already used in the treatment for hospitalised Covid-19 patients.
FPMPAM said it had submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Health (MoH) with a recommendation for a private-public partnership (PPP) programme to implement a nationwide early treatment for Covid-19 using existing nationwide general practitioners (GPs) and primary care doctors.
Pointing out there were at least 8,000 GPs in Malaysia, the Federation said each GP treating 10 to 20 symptomatic patients daily would be able to provide treatment for tens of thousands of early cases of Covid-19.
“Hydroxychloroquine is cheap with few side effects and is already being used as part of the treatment protocol in hospitals in this country and around the world. There is already evidence that it does work.
“We need to act as fast as possible. Waiting for time-consuming clinical trials to produce evidence that may come too late is not an option,” asserted FPMPAM.
The Federation recalled that the strategy to break the transmission chain of SARS-Cove-2 was to treat patients with prima facie evidence of the disease (presumptive diagnosis and treatment).
It added that a large number of patients would need to be treated in a short time to bring the infectious pool to below the critical mass in order to break the chain of transmission.
“Hopefully it will also modulate the progress of the disease and decrease progression to severe disease and hopefully the number of ICU (intensive care unit) admissions.
“This approach is being practised by doctors in some countries. Currently, there is no stock of hydroxychloroquine in this country for use by the private sector. The only stock of hydroxychloroquine is with the government sector,” it said.
As such, FPMPAM appealed to the MoH to set up the protocol for its proposed PPP programme and to release hydroxychloroquine for use in the community.
Failing this, the federation said the MoH should facilitate the import of this medication by the private sector from other countries, many of which had already banned exports in anticipation for use in their own countries.