PUTRAJAYA, June 21 — Malaysia, which is in the recovery phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, now requires every member of the society to play a role as a frontliner in the fight against the deadly virus.
The role demands enhancing responsibilities of the community, especially community leaders, who include village heads, by ensuring that all members in their communities adhere to the new normal and standard operating procedure (SOP) set by the government.
It is on this realisation that the Health Ministry introduced the concept of Prevent and Educate, Practice, Comply and Monitor (CAPP) to educate the public to be more responsible and enable them to be ‘frontliners’ in protecting themselves, their families and the local community from COVID-19.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba, when clarifying the matter, said CAPP is a strategy to empower the COVID-19 District Risk Reduction Programme (DRPP) which is aimed at protecting the green zones from COVID-19 and turning the yellow zones into green zones in 14 days.
“CAPP covers four areas, namely prevent and educate family members and the community on the new normal to protect themselves, their families and communities from the COVID-19 infection, adhere to the SOP and monitor their health,” he said in an interview in his office recently.
He said implementation of the CAPP would require the cooperation of various parties with the Health Ministry’s “Komuniti Sihat Pembina Negara or KOSPEN” (Healthy Community Country Builder), as well as at the community level, involving village heads, the Volunteer Department of Malaysia (Rela), Village Development and Security Committees (JKKK) and the neighbourhood patrol scheme.
“They are the ones who will be the frontliners and when combined, it becomes a large community, which I believe, they can maintain their green zone status, while those in yellow or red zones to turn them into green zones,” he said.
The strategies to be implemented will include mobilising existing resident committees as the coordinators of preventive activities in the community, health education announcements on COVID-19 prevention measures, motivate community in green zones to maintain the green status, as well as limit and record movement of residents and visitors in the community.
Dr Adham said implementation of CAPP would involve the use of the MySejahtera application that was launched on April 20 and which had now received more than four million users.
He said he had been to almost all states to explain the CAPP programme and the response was positive.
On the implementation of the CAPP among foreigners, he said, the foreign employers and embassies played an important role as they would have to order their citizens, especially those in red and yellow zones such as Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, to undergo swab tests.
Dr Adham called for the cooperation of all Malaysians to help fight COVID-19 by complying to the prescribed SOP and observing the new normal, especially social distancing.
As of yesterday, Malaysia recorded 8,556 COVID-19 positive cases, with the recovery rate at 95.2 per cent. The total death so far is 121 or 1.41 per cent of the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases.
