KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has called for a broader scientific approach to get the world ready to face the next pandemic which will go beyond the medical sciences.
Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin pointed out that the scientific approach should also include social, behavioural and data scientists since pandemics have grave social consequences.
Khairy mooted the idea in Unesco’s Virtual Ministerial Dialogue on Covid-19 and Open Science held today as he updated other science ministers on developments in Malaysia.
“I also raised the urgent need to create an international repository not just of medical research but also technological innovation such as successful reverse engineering to produce essential equipment which would be open source.
“Malaysia also raised the need to allow open source for applications designed to assist contact tracing and best practices on balancing the effectiveness of these applications and personal data privacy,” he wrote on his Twitter account.
Khairy told the audience that Malaysia also sought the experience of other countries on the development of rapid test kits, which do not have the same accuracy rates as the RT-PCR test which is the gold standard but takes longer to develop. – March 31, 2020, Bernama
