IMR doctor speaks of experience testing M'sia's first Covid-19 positive cases Modified29 Jan 2021, 3:14 am A - It was Jan 25, 2020. The sun hasn't risen yet. But for a team of doctors and lab technicians attached to the Institute of Medical Research Malaysia (IMR), their eyes could not have opened wider. They each had just received a phone call. Perhaps the most shocking one in their lives as researchers in the country's most elite medical laboratory. "The National Public Health Laboratory (MKAK) in Sungai Buloh has concluded their tests, and it looks like we might have the first positive Sars-CoV-2 cases in our country," a voice at the other end of the phone told Dr T Ravindran, the head of Virology Unit at IMR.