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Escalation of Testing in IMR

In the early days, our IMR laboratory in Jalan Pahang was only able to do 800 to 1,000 tests
per day because the equipment was mainly manual extraction and shortage of staff. From 5th
May 2020 onwards, we have increased the capacity to 5,000 tests per day in the new IMR
laboratory in NIH. The escalation of testing was possible with the automation, more
equipment and increase in manpower.

Data entry to the system is one of the important steps. For example, if we have 1,000 request
forms, we need manpower to enter the data into the system.

Diagram 9: An overview of what happens in IMR when the sample arrived.

When we receive samples, we will process the samples. One important step we have to do is
to inactivate the samples to reduce risk for the staff working in IMR. Then, PCR extraction
and we have staff who validates the result before releasing the result into SIMKA where the
users (e.g. hospital staff, district health officers) can trace the result. The result is available
online, in real time.