How Malaysia Counters Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19): Challenges and Recommendations

The arrival of COVID-19 to Malaysia was identified in January 2020 and the biggest cluster was associated with a Tablighi Jamaat religious gathering organized in Sri Petaling, Kuala Lumpur, in the early March. A number of challenges and recommendations on successful public health outbreak response tactics were addressed by the Malaysian government to combat the spread of the disease according to the national situation. As of July 3, 2020, web-based real-time tracking of the disease demonstrated that at least 8,643 confirmed cases and 121 deaths were reported in Malaysia, with at least 97.6% (8,437) of infected patients fully recovered from the disease. Meanwhile, Kuala Lumpur (2,422, 28.0%), Selangor (2,006, 23.2%), Negeri Sembilan (994, 11.5%), Johor (686, 7.9%), and Sarawak (565, 6.5%) were the top five states that recorded the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Malaysia until June 30, 2020. As of February 4, 2021, a total of 226,912 infections and 809 deaths were reported with Selangor accounted for more than 30% of the total cases in Malaysia. This pandemic highlighted the crucial role of a multilateral partnership led by the Malaysian government in handling an outbreak of highly infectious disease. The enforcement of the Movement Control Order (MCO) is the main reason for the chain of infection to be halted and controlled over a short period. The MCO is also proven to be an effective strategy to identify the clusters in which the virus spread has originated or affected the mass population in Malaysia.