During the daily media briefing by Ministry of Health today, its Director-General Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has stated that the COVID-19 rapid test kit is not being recommended for diagnostic.
Dr Noor Hisham explained that the rapid test kit is designed to detect antibody that would only appear in the body around 5 to 8 days after infection. Hence, the kit doesn’t really help when it comes to early detection of COVID-19.
The Director-General further pointed out that the method being used at the lab for COVID-19 is called Real-Time Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (rRT-PCR) which directly detects the virus in one’s body.
The Medical Device Authority of Malaysia has also published a very specific press release to address MyEG COVID-19 rapid test kit. Prior to that, the regulator body has also stated that another COVID-19 rapid test kit which has also made its way into Malaysia is strictly not for home use and can only be administrated by medical professionals or medical lab personnel:
Hence, it is not surprising that Dr Noor Hisham has advises members of the public not to perform COVID-19 test using the rapid kit by themselves without consulting their doctors due to possibilities of result misinterpretation.
Of course, we would also like to remind everyone out there to practice good hygiene and stay home throughout the on-going Movement Control Order period so that together we can stop the spread of COVID-19 as soon as possible.
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