Testing Chinese poop not people: Malaysia spurns Covid plans of Japan, India for China's reopening

Malaysia says it will start screening the waste water of flights from China for Covid-19 - but not test travellers - as the Southeast Asian nation prepares for the world's most populous country to reopen its borders.

Anxiety is rippling out across Asia over the possibility of new Covid variants and outbreaks driven by the return of China's 1.4 billion people to the prospect of international travel, after a three-year hiatus enforced by pandemic controls.

Malaysia, which opened its own borders in April, is not imposing any additional restrictions towards Chinese visitors such as pre-departure Covid tests.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

But health authorities will conduct fever screening upon arrival for all visitors at the country's international ports of entry.

"Those detected with fever or symptoms or self-declaration will be referred to the quarantine centre or the health department for re-examination," said Health Minister Zaliha Mustafa in a statement on Friday. "If Covid-19 is suspected, a Covid-19 test will be conducted."

The minister's comments came in response to a warning issued by her predecessor, Dzulkefly Ahmad - who led Malaysia's health ministry in the early days of the pandemic - flagging reports that more than half of all Chinese travellers landing in Milan, Italy, had tested positive for Covid.

"India, Japan and the US are requiring a negative Covid test from China. Is Malaysia ready?" Dzulkefly, a toxicologist, asked on Twitter.

Malaysia's first recorded Covid-19 case in January 2020 was traced back to a passenger from China who had arrived in the country via Singapore. Since then, more than 36,000 people have died and over 5 million cases have been recorded nationwide.

Lawmaker Kelvin Yii, who like the health minister is a medical doctor, earlier urged the government to take China's Covid surge seriously and consider some form of travel requirements for those travelling from China to Malaysia as a temporary emergency measure.

"I believe the Malaysian government should also consider some restrictions to prevent a rapid increase of infections in this country while balancing the economic need and livelihoods, especially for essential travels," Yii said.

The Malaysia Tourism Agency Association (Mata) has similarly urged the government to temporarily suspend the entry of tourists from China until its daily tally of Covid-19 cases goes down.

"We are aware that hospitals across China are facing an explosion in the number of Covid-19 cases following Beijing's decision to withdraw their strict regulations," Mata president Khalid Harun said, adding that the travel sector was still recovering from the billions of ringgit in losses incurred because of the effects of the virus over the past two years.

Waste-water sampling is a useful way of tracking Covid outbreaks, according to Khoo Yoong Khean, a scientist from the Duke-NUS Centre of Preparedness in Singapore, who said it can indicate Covid positivity earlier than nasal or throat swabs.

"Therefore, imposing pre-departure testing for travellers entering a destination country could yield negative results but travellers could then potentially show symptoms after," Khoo told This Week in Asia.

Screening the waste water of inbound flights can also help with monitoring Covid variants, he said, via genome sequencing.

A similar waste-water sampling method for international flights is also being considered by the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, according to reports. Travel restrictions previously failed to significantly curb the spread of Covid-19 in many countries, including the US.

Chinese state media said it was "discriminatory" that several places around the world were imposing testing requirements in response to China's reopening and surge of infections.

"The real intention is to sabotage China's three years of Covid-19 control efforts and attack the country's system," state-run tabloid Global Times said in an article late on Thursday, calling the restrictions "unfounded".

Throughout the pandemic, China required travellers to provide a negative PCR test result within 48 hours of departure and quarantine - for up to three weeks in a centralised facility - upon their arrival in the country. This year, the quarantine period was slowly reduced to seven days, and from January 8 will be abolished completely.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.