What isNHMS?

Seroprevalence study will involve activities such as blood sampling, information taking / short interview and self-administered questionnaires. The topics involve are seroprevalence COVID-19, hepatitis B and C, HIV stigma, dengue prevention and zoonotic infections related to household pet. During this first phase, scouting activities will be conducted to arrange appointments from the respondents and data collection activities will be conducted at nearby health facilities / clinics. A total of 10 ml of blood sample will be taken through venous puncture method for adult respondents while 3.5 ml - 5 ml for children and adolescents. All blood samples will be sent to the Institute for Medical Research (IMR) for COVID-19 laboratory tests while Hepatitis B and C laboratory tests will be sent to a certified private laboratory.

Interview by telephone (Call assisted telephone interview, CATI) will involve similar respondents from the first phase. The topics consist of tuberculosis like symptoms, antibiotic use, HIV knowledge and malaria awareness.

This survey will be conducted with cooperation from the State Liaison Officer (Communicable Disease unit) from each State Health department.

All household members from the randomly selected house will be interviewed and taken blood (Aged ≥ 1 year)

The selected houses will be visited by the Data Collection Team consisting of 4 research assistants’ officers, a nurse and a team supervisor. Data collectors will be provided with:

1. Official name tags for identification,
2. Letter of appointment

The houses were randomly selected by the Department of Statistics Malaysia, where approximately 2000 houses representing urban and rural areas were selected throughout Malaysia

1. Face to face interview
2. Blood sampling for detection of Hepatitis B, C and Covid-19 antibody
3. Self-administered Questionnaires

10 – 15 minutes

All respondents aged 1 years old and above will be recruited for blood collection. Blood will be drawn from a venipuncture procedure. Volume of blood that will be drawn according to age and weight of respondent;

1. >15 years old: 10 ml
2. Children < 7 years old: 5 ml
3. Children 7-15 years old: 5 ml

Your participation in this study is voluntary and no termination will be applied unless you are known to have any non-eligibility criteria after study recruitment.

All your information obtained in this study will be kept and handled in a confidential manner, in accordance with applicable laws and/or regulations. All information will be used for survey and research purposes only.

There will be no direct health benefits if you take part in this survey. However, information obtained from this study will help the policy makers to plan towards improving health services and disease control programmes in this country.

If you are recruited for blood investigation, you will get information on your health status related to hepatitis B and C infections as Covid-19 antibody.