Kuching
Sarawak Infectious Disease Centre
- The proposed project is located at Kota Samarahan, along Kuching-Samarahan Expressway, opposite existing Institut Jantung Samarahan (refer Figure 1). The project development is approximately 40acres in size and the development is for the construction of Sarawak Infectious Disease center.
- the establishment of the Sarawak Infectious Disease Centre (SIDC) will catalyse the development of biomedical industries in Sarawak, being the start of a biohub integrating hospitals, research centre,
- SIDC and other related upcoming complexes would provide a complete pipeline from – discovery to testing and clinical trials – through to production and human capital training to provide a highly-skilled workforce for the biomedical industry.
- The key functions of the SIDC are to ensure successful delivery of the SIDC physical project by 2024, laboratory work and analysis of data generated from the SIDC research projects.
- The research projects are the Covid-19 Vaccine Serology study as well as establishing research collaborations with local and international partners such as the Australian National Phenome Centre and Institute of Health and Community Medicine (IHCM), Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas).
- SIDC is also expected to establish policy and framework to form the basis for collaboration with the Ministry of Health.
- It is envisaged that these initiatives will create a vibrant, aggressive and productive research and development ecosystem that will contribute to the socio-economic development of Sarawak in years to come.
- The SIDC is a research centre under the purview of the SRDC, which was set up through the Sarawak Research and Development Ordinance, 2017.
- The SRDC is tasked with enabling effective coordination and research activities, facilitating and attracting meaningful collaborations between local and international research institutions and enhancing research and development activities in the state.