Health ministry sets over 20 KPIs to hit in 100 days

The health ministry has outlined more than 20 key performance indicators (KPIs) to be achieved within 100 days, as Malaysia expects to enter the endemic phase by October.

Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the KPIs mostly revolve around efforts to address the Covid-19 pandemic threat to ensure that preparations and the transition towards the targets are implemented in the best possible way.

“Our focus is to ensure that the people can understand the new norms when entering the endemic phase. However, the health ministry will never abandon other health matters (which are not related to Covid-19),” he said in a special interview on the ministry’s 100-day KPI target.

Khairy said among the KPIs is the vaccination programme for teenagers aged 12 to 17 and the policy announcement for the third dose of Covid-19 vaccines (booster dose).

He hoped that as many teenagers as possible would complete their vaccination before the opening of the new school term next year.

“Within 100 days, we will start vaccinating teenagers aged 12 to 17. Our target (number of recipients) will be announced based on the supply of vaccines, but we will give vaccines to this group for sure.

“It will start next week in Sarawak because they have reached the threshold value of 80%. My hope is that in 100 days, as many teenagers as possible will be able to receive their vaccines so that by the beginning of the school year, our teenagers will have completed their vaccination,” he said.

He said within the same period, the target of 80% of the adult population in Malaysia being fully vaccinated would be achieved.

Apart from vaccination, the ministry will also focus on the hospitalisation of Covid-19 patients.

He said within 100 days, the ministry is determined to reduce the bed usage for Covid-19 patients for non-ICU and ICU beds.

“We will ensure that the percentage of ICU bed usage for Covid-19 is less than 70% while non-ICU beds for Covid-19 cases, less than 50%,” he said.

“We will ensure that oxygen cylinders in health facilities are adequate by ensuring that each of these facilities has oxygen cylinders in excess of 85% of the requirements,” he said.

He also targets reducing the percentage of brought-in-dead (BID) cases from 21% to 15%, besides expanding the virtual Covid assessment centre (VCAC) initiative in Kelantan, Melaka, Penang, Johor and Perak.

Regarding SOPs for the endemic phase, Khairy said the health ministry would work closely with the National Security Council, the finance ministry and the communications and multimedia ministry to produce a clearer SOP framework that can be easily understood.

“It will focus on compliance efforts and improving the people’s understanding,” he said.

Apart from that, he said the health ministry would share data related to Covid-19 with the public in detail starting this Monday, in an effort to boost transparency and public trust.

Acknowledging that the existence of newer and fast-spreading Covid-19 variants is a challenge, Khairy said the health ministry would increase genomic surveillance to ensure these variants are quickly detected.

Other targeted initiatives include releasing clinical trial data for ivermectin in Covid-19 treatment.

The health ministry will also approve more self-test kits and expand the types of premises allowed to sell the kits other than pharmacies and health facilities by placing conditions related to the control of their sales, he said.

He added that the ministry plans to provide free self-test kits and Covid-19 screening for the vulnerable and B40 groups in an effort to increase protection during the endemic phase.