Materia Medica Malaysiana

Public health lab to be built in KK

Kuala Lumpur: Three more public health laboratories will be built under the Eighth Malaysia Plan (2001-2005) in Kota Kinabalu, Kuching and Kota Baru.

Health Minister Datuk Chua Jui Meng said currently there is a national public health lab in Sungai Buloh and two regional labs in Tampoi, Johor and in Jelapang, Perak. The three new labs would be regional ones.

“The challenge for these labs is to support research on contagious diseases,” he told reporters after launching the Sungai Buloh national public health lab, here Thursday.

Chua said an Enhanced Biosafety Level 3 lab complex costing RM10 million would be set up in the national lab to improve on dangerous disease research.

“This facility can handle high risk patogens from level three onwards - that spread through breathing and cause serious or fatal infections.

Chua said the Government allocated RM10 million to develop the information system in the existing three public health labs and connect all the labs in the Health Ministry hospitals.

“The project now under tender will enable national lab-based surveillance to be implemented electronically and online. This will enable the Health Ministry to act fast in facing emerging epidemics,” he said.

The RM30 million national public health lab would also act as training and monitoring centres to guarantee the quality of all labs under the public health programme.

The national lab has three units - a food unit to study food and water borne diseases; a disease unit to monitor contagious diseases and identify disease causing agents; and an epidemiology unit to study research from labs nationwide.

Chua said the national health lab was actively developing tissue culture techniques, and molecular and serology isolation and identification methods.- Bernama