Materia Medica Malaysiana

Bird flu-free status within a week: Latiff

Kota Kinabalu: Malaysia is set to be declared bird flu-free in a week when the 21-day quarantine period imposed in Kampung Baru, Pasir Pekan in Kelantan ends.

Deputy Health Minister Datuk Dr Abdul Latiff Ahmad said that surveillance in the area had not detected any new cases of bird flu infection.

“All the chickens affected by the virus have been culled...in a week’s time Malaysia should be declared bird flu-free,” he said after opening the Second Asian Congress of Paediatric Infectious Diseases and 26th Annual Congress of the Malaysian Paediatric Association (MPA) at Magellan Wing Sutera Harbour Resort and Spa, here, Thursday.

At the moment, three government agencies were conducting both active and passive screening at the areas and “we will wait for another week, it is according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) standard.”

“We monitor and hope for the best,” he said when asked to comment on the situation there ever since the avian flu virus was detected in chickens.

He also stressed that no humans had contracted the avian flu virus in Kelantan.

In his speech earlier, Dr Abdul Latiff said emerging infectious diseases, once thought a thing of the past, were making a comeback not only in Malaysia but in industrialised nations as well.

“Resurgence has been made more apparent with the emergence of HIV/AIDS. Trans-boundary migration of workers and tourists has also made medicine and infectious diseases borderless,” he said.

Dr Abdul Latif said in this respect, the Asian region was vulnerable due to the wide disparity in healthcare and system structures between different countries.

“It is, therefore, highly probable that a disease contracted in one country can be detected in another within hours as air travel becomes more affordable and common,” he said.

Despite advances in modern medicine, infectious diseases remain a persistent scourge and the leading cause of mortality and morbidity particularly in developing countries.

“In Malaysia, 100 per cent of one-year-old children are immunised against tuberculosis, 94.1 per cent against diphteria-pertusis and tetanus, 93.4 per cent against polio, 86.2 per cent against measles and 91.1 per cent against hepatitis.

“The fact that we fall short of 100 per cent across the board means that there are still a lot of people out there who fail to realise the potentially fatal consequences of a single (vaccine-preventable) infection,” he said.

Toward this end, Dr Abdul Latif said an effective response to any new infectious disease threat would involve mobilising public health activities, requiring cooperation and open communication among various departments.

“Malaysia’s success in curbing infections such as the enterovirus 71, nipah virus (in the 1990s) and more recently the SARS infection, is owed to the cooperation of departments in the ministry, universities and private sector,” he said.

According to him, resistant organisms posed a major problem not just in the hospital where multi-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella have evolved due to the many antibiotics used in these hospitals.

Resistant tuberculosis has also made it harder for us to treat these patients, with poor compliance leading to the current problem, he said.

Dr Abdul Latif said newer and more expensive antibiotics were now required and the government needs to keep abreast with these advances. “The cost of newer antibiotics would eventually have to be capped in order to accomplish our quest of providing health and medical attention for the whole nation,” he said.

He also urged doctors to notify all cases of infectious diseases (in the notifiable diseases list) they encounter to facilitate production of data for the country.

Dr Abdul Latif also expressed gratitude to the MPA for working with the Government such as during the introduction of a combination of vaccines that saw the Ministry using Mumps-Measles-Rubella (MMR) vaccine nationwide for the first time following a re-evaluation of the country’s immunisation schedule in 2001-2002.

He commended MPA for the assistance in re-educating their less-informed colleagues (who initially resisted because they failed to understand the rationale for the campaign) on the advantages of the nationwide mass measles vaccination campaign introduced this year.

The three-day congress ending Saturday is aimed at discussing new ideas, approaches, systems and practices that can be adapted, improved and expanded to overcome challenges in paediatric infectious diseases.

Nearly 700 local and foreign delegates are taking part in the congress that would see papers on respiratory infections in children, paediatric SARS diagnostic and therapeutic challenges, update on community and hospital acquired infections and a special session on the avian flu.

Also on hand were MPA President cum organising chairman Pro Dr Zulkifli Haji Ismail, Asian Society of Paediatric Infectious Diseases (ASPID) President Dr Rosalinda Soriano and State Health Department officials as well as Queen Elizabeth Hospital senior officers.