Kota Kinabalu: The Sabah Veterinary Services Department (DOVS) won the Innovative and Creative Group New Horizon Award for their Salmonella detection kit project.
The Department won the award under the Sabah Public Sector Innovative Service Delivery category.
Team leader Awang Mohd Sagaf said the innovation project had been tested on 1,000 samples for over a year, and the analysis activities had been improved based on SAMM’s requirements.
“Previously using bacteriological methods took about two weeks to get results, but with this innovation, Salmonella detection tests can be done in about two hours.
“When the industry submits chicken-based products to the laboratory, we can speed up the tests and reduce the waiting time for the results as well as simplify the export arrangement,” he said after receiving the award at the Sabah Public Sector Innovation Awards Ceremony (iSAS), at Menara Kinabalu, Thursday.
According to him, the target of the innovation project is to produce simpler, more effective and faster analysis techniques to help the Bacteriology Unit without affecting laboratory operations in terms of finances, time or personnel.
Meanwhile, DOVS Director Dr Normah Yusop said the production of the kit was a significant achievement in diagnosing Salmonella bacteria.
“This achievement will open up new testing opportunities for other specific diseases and help early-stage detection.
“We hope this method can be improved and applied to the detection of other diseases such as Rabies, Avian Influenza and even Covid-19 as it is more specific and simple,” he said.
