KUALA LUMPUR, June 15 — The Health Ministry is not getting full data from private health laboratories offering Covid-19 testing, resulting in the daily low numbers.

Its director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said private labs were only providing the ministry with data on those who test positive for the coronavirus and omitted those whose results returned negative.

“If we look at yesterday and the day before, there is a reduction but this is due to private laboratories not informing on negative cases, only positive cases are informed to MOH,” he said.

As of June 14, 7,774 Covid-19 test was conducted while 9,279 test was conducted on June 13.

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However, Dr Noor Hisham assured the public that there are sufficient public and private health laboratories to carry out the tests and that they are standardised under the Public Health Lab Information System (SIMKA).

“We began with 23 labs now it is 53. So our capacity has increased with nearly 35,000 tests that can be conducted per day,’’ he said.

Dr Noor Hisham said MOH does not provide free blanket testing of Covid-19.

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Instead, it takes a targeted approach, especially for cases in which the patients are designated as under investigation, and Malaysian returnees from abroad.

Last month, Dr Noor Hisham explains that a targeted approach in Covid-19 testing is key to provide a “win-win” outcome with a “high impact”, but at a “reasonable cost”, instead of just testing everyone in the country, which may not be as efficient or effective as they could still be exposed to Covid-19 risks in their community.