Liow: Act fast on dengue

Star: GEORGE TOWN: Doctors should show more initiative and act faster when treating patients with dengue fever, said Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.
He said no one should take the disease lightly.
“As of Tuesday, we have recorded 23,626 cases with 80 deaths compared to 24,817 cases with 62 deaths for the same period last year.
“Although we managed to bring down the number of cases slightly, the number of dengue fatalities has increased,” he told a press conference after visiting the newly-completed quarters for Penang Hospital at Jalan Utama here yesterday.
Liow said Selangor had the highest number of recorded dengue cases.
As for Penang, he said the state managed to bring down the number of cases to 579 this year compared to 1,562 for the same period last year.
He said there were four types of dengue and that the complications kept changing.
Liow urged Village Development and Security Committees (JKKKs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to set up Communica­tion Behavourial Impact (Combi) volunteer groups to help curb the rise in dengue cases.
Earlier, Liow said the healthcare industry in Malaysia was expected to generate RM11bil for the national economy in 2020, 10% more than the initially projected RM10bil.
Liow revealed the new target yesterday after a working visit to Info Kinetics lab at Eureka Complex in Universiti Sains Malaysia.
He said the ministry had so far identified five sectors — clinical research centre, pharmaceutical, health tourism, production of medical appliances and training of specialists – to concentrate on in order to reach the target.
On another matter, he said Malaysia had identified a piece of land in Cyberjaya for China to set up a centre of excellence for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).