43 Health Products Withdrawn Up To May, Dewan Rakyat Told

A total of 43 health products out of 895 sold by direct-selling companies were withdrawn from the market between January and May this year for not meeting standards, Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek said Thursday.
He told the Dewan Rakyat that within the same period, 3,922 unregistered health products were seized.
Replying to Raime Unggi (BN-Tenom), Dr Chua said 150 out of 2,147 health products were withdrawn in 2004 for the same reason.
He said products sold by direct-selling companies must be analysed by the Drug Control Authority before they are put on the market.
To a supplementary question, by Datuk Dr Rahman Ismail (BN-Gombak), Dr Chua said the ministry had enough experts to carry out the analysis.

Govt Will Not Entertain Appeals On CSMU - Dr Chua

The government will not entertain appeals on de-recognition of the medical degree from the Crimea State Medical University (CSMU) in Ukraine.
Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek said the door for appeals was closed as the CSMU had not appealed or replied to the enquiries made by the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) on the issue despite of the long period given to them.
The government regretted the university's attitude which had remained silent all this while, especially when the de-recognition issue was hotly talked about in the country for the past two weeks.
"Till now, we have not received any reply or appeals from CSMU. Only the Ukraine Ambassador to Malaysia made a statement and he tried to turn the matter into a political issue.
"Hence, the cabinet, in its weekly meeting yesterday, decided not to entertain any appeals from the university. The decision is final," he told reporters at Parliament lobby Thursday.
On education quality at CSMU, Dr Chua said the quality of its graduates was suspect, especially their understanding of medical terminologies in English.
"This is because CSMU still used Russian language as the medium of instruction although it was asked to conduct the medical degree programme in English.
"The government is actively promoting Malaysia as a medical tourism destination. This effort will not succeed if people questioned the quality of Malaysian doctors," he said.
Earlier, replying to Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timur) in the Dewan Rakyat, Dr Chua said the decision to withdraw the recognition was made based on professional assessment without any political or racial undertones.
Therefore, he said, the decision should not be exploited by political parties to fish for votes.
He also said the decision was made taking into account the safety concerns of students following reports of students being raped and threatened not to report the crime to the authorities.
"Besides safety, corruption is also an issue. The MMC sent a letter last year seeking an explanation on the matter but there has been no reply till today," he said.
Dr Chua said the MMC also wrote in to the Ukraine Medical Council seeking clarification that the Ukraine government through its medical council did not recognise Malaysian students who are graduates of CSMU and there has been no reply till today.
He also said CSMU graduates have shallow knowledge and weak skills due to their poor command of English.
"Therefore, we decided to withdraw the recognition. We want quality doctors. We endorse MMC's decision," he said.

HIV/AIDS drug contract

Duopharma Biotech Bhd expects to ink a two-year contract with the Health Ministry likely in August to supply drugs for HIV/AIDS patients, said its managing director Chia Ting Poh.
“We were called by the ministry for a price negotiation and we believe the contract will likely be officially signed by August,” he told FinancialDaily after the company’s AGM in Klang on June 29.
The contract, which may be renewable every two years, will allow Duopharma to supply SLN 30 and SLN 40 tablets, which are three-in-one fixed dose combination (FDC) anti-retroviral drugs, to government, teaching and army hospitals and city halls across the nation.
The new FDC, a life-prolonging drug recommended by the World Health Organisation, will be the first to be introduced in Malaysia.
According to Duopharma’s 2004 annual report, the government intends to fully subsidise the new drug at an estimated cost of between RM15 million and RM26 million, which it says is only 20% of existing treatment costs.
Chia said Duopharma would have exclusive patent rights for SLN 30 and SLN 40, which were waived by UK-based pharmaceutical research firm GlaxoSmithKline.
Chia said the costs to treat an HIV/AIDS patient would be reduced by 80% to RM2,000 per year from RM10,000 per year. Based on official figures, there are 60,000 HIV/AIDS patients in the country with almost 20 new cases reported daily.
HIV/AIDS patients are now paying RM3,000 per year for medication with the remaining RM7,000 subsidised by the government.
“With the government’s intention to fully subsidise the drug, it will encourage more patients to come forward for treatment,” Chia added.
Duopharma is also working closely with the ministry on a pilot project expected to begin by September on the usage of Methadone to cure drug addiction. The government estimates there are 300,000 addicts but unreported cases could be more than that.
“For every one known addict, there are four unknown addicts. The pilot project was initially targeted for six months but it is now indefinite,” Chia said, adding that the pilot project would initially involve 1,300 patients.
“It’s the question of how fast the government can mobilise. There is meticulous paperwork, ensuring appropriate controls are monitored, and doctors are adequately trained to handle the drug,” he said.
He said the government was formulating new guidelines. “The old strategy of criminalising drug addicts and putting them in detention centres is not useful and is costly.” He said private sales of Methadone to general practitioners had increased.

CSMU Medical Degree De-Recognition Not An Ethnic Issue, Says PM

The government's decision to de-recognise the medical degree from the Crimea State Medical University (CSMU) in Ukraine is not an ethnic discrimination issue, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said Wednesday.
"There is no such intention at all from any party involved in making the decision to be influenced by ethnic considerations," the prime minister said when commenting on the cabinet's decision to endorse the decision of the Malaysian Medical Council to de-recognise the medical degree from the university.
"Students affected by the decision are Malaysian students of all races -- Indians, Malays and also Chinese...they will together face the difficulties," he told reporters after visiting the Malaysian Integrity Institute.
In announcing the cabinet's decision in Putrajaya today, Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek said the de-recognition would not affect 247 Malaysian students currently taking pre-medical course at the university.
Abdullah said the government decided to allow the students to continue their studies until their graduate with a medical degree.
"Those who are in the preparatory level, we will allow them to continue till they complete their degree.
"To the others, including those who have just applied, we have decided not to allow them to go ahead with their plans," he said.
Meanwhile, MIC President Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu said he was happy with the Cabinet's decision.
He thanked the Prime Minister, his deputy, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, and his Cabinet colleagues for agreeing to MIC's request to allow the 247 pre-medical students who are already at the CSMU to continue their studies.
The Works Minister agreed with the Prime Minister that there was no racial discrimination in the MMC's decision to withdraw the recognition.
"The MIC has never perceived the matter as a racial issue," he added.

Question Time: Opportunity in adversity for Sothinathan
By P Gunasegaram
Datuk S Sothinathan's suspension as a deputy minister for three months raises the question of whether the "punishment" reflects the "crime". But it does nothing to answer the older question of the debacle over the decision to stop recognising medical degrees from Crimea State Medical University (CSMU) of Ukraine.
Let's take the first issue first.
The unprecedented step of suspending a deputy minister, also Member of Parliament for Telok Kemang and MIC secretary-general — positions that he will keep — was taken because he criticised the government while being a member of the government.
Sothinathan had last Tuesday interrupted Deputy Health Minister Datuk Dr Abdul Latiff Ahmad, who was speaking in Parliament over the decision by the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) to stop recognition of the CSMU medical degree.
Relying on the Hansard, the official record of Parliamentary proceedings, Sothinathan's interruption came soon after Abdul Latiff said: "If a leader of a component party in the Barisan Nasional says that the decision [to withdraw recognition] was to reduce the capacity of the Indian community to produce doctors, it is not true at all." According to earlier press reports, MIC president Datuk Seri S Samy Vellu had alleged as much.
Abdul Latiff proceeded to provide statistics and said that over 200 Malay students are in CMSU but "our friends in Umno support [the decision to withdraw recognition] because Umno is the custodian of quality".
It was at this juncture that Sothinathan, feathers obviously ruffled, asked for permission to speak. He explained that since over 500 students or more than 50% of the students involved were Indians, MIC was obliged to offer its views.
But he did not stop there. He questioned why the MMC, if it were professional, had recognised CSMU in 2001. He went on to ask why the Higher Education Ministry issued no-objection certificates to applicants to the university. This was probably in reference to earlier reports that part of the reason for withdrawing recognition was the poor quality of candidates.
Admittedly, Sothinathan was behaving like a backbencher here rather than a member of the administration. But he could have been excused for that, considering that another administration member made a barely disguised reference to MIC and the party boss.
Could the view not have been taken — considering the heat of the moment, the emotive content in the issue, some provocation to boot and the need to have constructive debate — that Sothinathan could have been excused for his behaviour? What good comes out of making him an example?
Also, others besides Sothinathan were more to blame for emotionalising the issue and when he questions the decision of the MMC, he is not questioning an arm of the government but a body set up under an Act of Parliament. In this instance, however, the government supports the decision of the council in stopping the recognition of CSMU degrees.
In the ensuing melee, the question that started it all has been relegated to the back burner — should the recognition for medical degrees from the CSMU be withdrawn? If so, why?
If there are good reasons for this, the MMC has certainly not articulated them well. MMC president and Health Ministry secretary-general Datuk Dr Ismail Merican attributed the withdrawal of recognition to the dubious qualifications of students, the number of students per lecturer, and a possible drop in quality of teaching because of a sharp increase in students, amongst others.
As it turns out, it was the Higher Education Ministry that issued no-objection certificates to some of these students, implying they had the minimum qualifications to undertake the course. Such a situation understandably gave the perception that the decision to stop recognition may have had other motives.
But to be fair to the MMC, it made it clear that the current 1,119 students who have already enrolled in CSMU classes could continue as they are not affected by the move to stop recognition of the medical degrees.
This was glossed over as the situation got politicised. Those who would be affected are those planning to study in CSMU rather than those who are already there and therefore, the fallout from the so-called de-recognition will be a lot smaller than the figures suggest. This point was reiterated by the deputy health minister in his reply in Parliament last Tuesday.
The MMC on its part should be a lot more transparent over its recognition procedure. In the haste to de-recognise, it can close the door to lower-income Malaysians, not just Indians but those from other races as well, obtaining medical degrees cheaply, considering the highly limited places in Malaysia and the very high cost of and limited places in developed countries.
The council and the government should certainly do a lot more to produce doctors locally by setting up more facilities in the country. That will reduce dependence on foreign countries and give more highly qualified Malaysians of all races opportunities to obtain medical degrees. Why is the government not doing that?
Meantime, the only victim of this latest Crimean war, which has been blown out of proportion, is Deputy Minister Sothinathan. But this bit of adversity may give his political career a welcome opportunity and boost.
Now everyone knows Sothinathan. Hope his boss is not too discomfited.

P Gunasegaram is group executive editor at The Edge.

CSMU sends appeal letter to Abdullah

The Crimea State Medical University in Ukraine has submitted an appeal to the Prime Minister against the Government’s decision to de-recognise its degrees from Jan 1 next year.
Ukrainian Medical Education Sdn Bhd, which represents CSMU, said in the appeal that the university was not informed of the Malaysian Medical Council’s pending decision and had no chance to take steps to rectify outstanding issues.
Dr Subendran Arumugam, a director of Ukrainian Medical Education, said a grace period or at least a warning should have been given to the university.
"A total of 25,000 doctors from 38 different countries have graduated from CSMU," he pointed out.
"Does this count for nothing? MMC is willing to recognise medical degrees from Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt and Jordan, and yet has de-recognised CSMU as lacking in quality."
He said the large increase of Malaysians at CSMU from 53 to 1,061 in recent years had not affected the institution’s one-to-10 teacher-to-student ratio and the students were spread over six to seven years at various levels of enrolment

MoUs on quality education signed

Universiti Malaysia Sabah is co-operating with three institutions, two of them foreign, to raise the quality of education at its School of Medicine.
This follows the signing of three memorandums of understanding on sharing expertise in clinical research and transfer of knowledge.
The institutions are India’s Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Universitas Hasanuddin Indonesia, and the Palliative Care Association (PCA) of Kota Kinabalu.
UMS Vice-Chancellor Datuk Prof Dr Mohd Noh Dalimin, who signed the MoUs today, said in the short term, international scientific seminars could also be arranged. With the understanding reached, he said discussions on experiences in medical education and training would also be held.
He said the understanding with PCA would ensure that their medical students have the right attitude and empathy in caring for the ill.
UMS School of Medicine enrolled its first batch of students in 2003, and they are expected to graduate in 2008.
Noh said a building for the School of Medicine and a training hospital were among the facilities to be constructed with funding from the Ninth Malaysia Plan.

Ukrainian envoy in the dark over CSMU saga

Ukrainian Ambassador to Malaysia Oleksandr Shevchenko said on Sunday the embassy was in the dark over the de-recognition by the Malaysian Medical Council of its Crimea State Medical University (CSMU).
"We learnt it from the press reports and the happenings in the Parliament," he said.
He said there has been no official notification or grace period being given by the authorities (before the de-recognition).
Explaining the situation in CSMU, he said thus far only about 23 medical students from Malaysia have graduated from the university, adding that there are another 1,118 Malaysian students pursuing courses at various levels.
Speaking at a roundtable discussion on the CSMU saga, Shevchenko said Ukraine's higher education system gives emphasis to quality, and ensures the standards at CSMU and other universities are adhered to strictly.
He said on the average, 8% to 10% (no Malaysians) are expelled from universities for not meeting the standards.
On the ratio of lecturers to students, he said at the moment it is one lecturer to 10 students, and this is acceptable from the European Unions standards.
Shevchenko said his country would like to resolve the matter constructively, adding the embassy has prepared its counter-arguments over the de-recognition of CSMU.
Meanwhile, Dewan Rakyat Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timur), in his comments at the discussion, said Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek should present a ministerial statement in Parliament on the Crimea State Medical University (CSMU) saga.
He said a satisfactory account of the background, history, process and reasons for the Malaysian Medical Council's de-recognition of CSMU should be given.
"Why was there no grace period given to CSMU, when Universiti Malaya was given five years notice before the de-recognition of its medical degrees by the United Kingdom General Medical Council in the early 80s?" asked Lim.
Lim said it does not reflect well on the professionalism, accountability, transparency and a sense of justice of the MMC and the Malaysian government to spring such a surprise on the CSMU and the thousands of Malaysians studying at the medical university.
Others who took part in the roundtable discussion were DAP vice-chairman M. Kulasegaran, DAP secretary general Lim Guan Eng, UKM Prof T. Ramasamy and Malaysian Trades Union Congress president Syed Sharir Syed Mohd.

Tell-tale symptoms of andropause

When a man starts to forget the birthday of his loved ones or the sweet memories, that could be a symptom that he has reached andropause.
Datuk Dr Tan Hui Meng said andropause can cause impotence, memory loss and intimacy problems in men.
“A study showed that men have the potential of a low sexual drive at the age of 64,” he said at the Men’s Health Public Forum yesterday.
Themed ‘Be A Champion in Health’, the conference was mostly attended by men aged between 40 and 70.
“The decline in sexual desire and erection quality, decrease of body hair and skin changes are among the andropause syndrome,” said Dr Tan.
He said the main factors which influence health were tobacco usage, dietary and physical activities.
The conference was organised by the Malaysian Society of Andrology and the Study of the Ageing Male (Msasam), Ministry of Health and Eli Lilly (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd.
The conference was officiated by National Population and Family Development Board (LPPK) director-general Fatimah Saad, who also launched the Living Well book authored by Dr Tan and friends.

IMU's new appointments

The International Medical University (IMU) has hired two new professors and an associate professor. Prof Boo Nem Yun joins as Professor of Paediatrics,Prof Cheong Soon Keng becomes a Professor of Medicine and Assoc Prof Lim Pek Hong has been appointed head of the Nursing Department.
“We are delighted about the new appointments. Prof Cheong and Prof Boo have vast experience and skills in both academic and clinical areas of health care. We look forward to their contribution in the training of students in IMU,” said IMU president Tan Sri Dr Abu Bakar Suleiman.
He also expressed his pleasure at the appointment of Asoc Prof Lim as the head of the nursing programme. “With her experience and skills in education and nursing practice, we are confident that she will contribute positively to the development of the nursing programme,” said Dr Abu Bakar.
Prior to her present appointment, Prof Boo was the Professor of Neonatology (which is a subspecialty in paediatrics, taking care of sick newborn infants) in the Medical Faculty of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and head of the Neonatal Intensive Care unit of Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
She joined UKM as a lecturer in 1982 and was promoted associate professor in 1988 and Professor of Neonatology (which is the first of its kind in Malaysia) in 1993.
She is the chairperson of the Malaysian Neonatal Resuscitation Program that, over the last 9 years since its inception, has systematically trained more than 10,000 medical and nursing personnel in Malaysia in the proper techniques of resuscitation of newborn infants.
Prof Cheong has been appointed Professor of Medicine in the IMU Clinical School, Seremban. Prior to his present appointment, Prof Cheong was the Professor of Haematology in the Medical Faculty of UKM.
He was appointed a lecturer in UKM in 1980 and became an Assoc Prof in 1987 and the Professor of Haematology (the first-ever appointment in Malaysia) in 1993.
Currently he serves as president of the Malaysian Society of Haematology, vice-president of the College of the Pathologists, Academy of Medicine of Malaysia and vice-president of the National Cancer Council.
Prior to this appointment, Assoc Prof Lim was an associate professor in the Nursing Programme at the medical faculty in UM.
In 1999 she was appointed a lecturer in the nursing programme, at the Medical Faculty of Universiti Malaya and became an associate professor in 2003.

Local Experts Told To Commercialise Biotechnology Products

Biotechnology researchers, especially from local universities, have been urged to commercialise their products which could penetrate the world market.
Minister of Higher Education Datuk Dr Shafie Mohd Salleh said only five percent of the findings of local experts had been commercialised so far despite the huge world market which amounted to US$19 billion.
He said although Malaysia was new in this field, its expertise, especially those in institutions of higher learning, were at par with their foreign counterparts.
"Our experts have made many valuable discoveries in this field. The latest is a "marker" discovered by a group of researchers from the Institute for Research in Molecular Medicine (INFORMM) Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), which is currently being marketed in several countries."
The government was happy with these achievements and would allocate more funds for such research, he told reporters after launching INFORMM, here, Sunday.
INFORMM director Professor Asma Ismail said the institute carried out "cutting-edge" research such as on diagnostic, vaccinology, disease mechanism, Innovative Therapy and tissue engineering.
The Institute had also patented five other products. They include a Typhoid tracking kit which only needed 15 minutes to trace the deadly disease. This kit is currently in the market.
She said licences for the other four were "being processed". They were a kit for tracing paratyphoid, tuberculosis, cholera and malaria.
She said the kits were more practical and easily used and they were being sold in Pakistan, India, South Africa, China and the Philippines.

Call To Lift De-recognition Of CSMU Medical Degrees

The Parliamentary Roundtable (4) on the Crimea State Medical University (CSMU) controversy Sunday called on the government to lift the de-recognition of the university's medical degrees and provide the university a grace period to rectify any shortfall in its medical course.
The meeting, organised by the Parliamentary Opposition Leader's Office, also felt that the issue and reasons behind the de-recognition should be explained by Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek himself in Parliament.
The group of representatives from various organisations also agreed that Dr Chua should disclose the findings of the technical team sent to evaluate the university.
Chaired by DAP vice chairman M. Kulasegaran, the meeting also called on a fact-finding mission to be sent to CSMU to establish whether the university medical course was on par with other medical degrees recognised by the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC).
"We agree unanimously on these as our resolutions," said Kulasegaran during the meeting which was open to the media, at Parliament House here.
Also present were Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang, DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng and Ukraine's ambassador to Malaysia, Oleksandr Shevchenko.
Shevchenko said that until Sunday the embassy had yet to receive official information from the authorities regarding the de-recognition of CSMU, adding that they only knew about it through news reports.
"I'm do not quite understand the reason, as based on information I have so far, only 23 Malaysians have graduated from CSMU, so how could they (MMC) make that as a foundation on the quality of the university's medical course," he said at the meeting.
He said that past years evaluation by the Health Ministry's technical team on the 10 Ukraine universities, including CSMU, had shown positive results.
"That's why we intend to get recognition for other universities as well. But I was told this year's evaluation had shown different findings," he said.
The CSMU issue had caused dissatisfaction, mainly in the Indian community, and many had perceived it as an unjust action by the government.

HIV/AIDS - it's everyone's fight

A multisectoral approach is needed to fight the disease with the rising numbers of cases, Malaysian AIDS Council president, Marina Mahathir, tells JESWANT KAUR
MALAYSIA would not be on the brink of a HIV/AIDS epidemic if we had paid more attention to the early warning signs. Instead, a reluctance to confront the problem
head-on and a false sense of security have resulted in the recent World Health Organisation warning that the country is at the initial stage of a HIV break out.
This is not the first warning from WHO which had issued a similar caution a few years ago. Its recent fear, however, was prompted by findings that 15,000 children in Malaysia had been orphaned by AIDS. WHO is now closely monitoring the “progress” of the HIV situation in Malaysia. Its findings are contained in its UNAIDS/WHO Report on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic.

Sixteen years after HIV was first detected in Malaysia, the situation domestically has seen little improvement. Official figures state that about 65,000 people have been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. Of this, 9,444 have AIDS and 7,195 have since died.
“Obviously, the rising numbers indicate that the Government has not done enough. There was this reluctance to tackle the issue of HIV/AIDS head-on, with the false security that somehow we are different from other countries affected by AIDS and that we can do things our own way,” laments Malaysian AIDS Council (MAC) president Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir.

She tells Sunday Mail that Malaysia’s failure to articulate an effective way of tackling the problem had only worsened the situation.
“Everything is deemed sensitive and because of that no one does anything. Is it surprising then that we should be in this situation now?”
“MAC has been voicing the same concern for a long time. We were using the word ‘epidemic’ from the beginning. But unfortunately, we sometimes need to get to a certain level of infection before people really begin to understand how serious it is,” she says.

She says the public’s lack of understanding about HIV/AIDS was responsible for the many misconceptions about the disease.
“I do not think the public is in denial as much as I think they are not very well educated about HIV. There are still many misconceptions about how you do or do not get infected by HIV. It is not surprising then that some people react negatively to suggestions made to improve the situation. If they were better informed, then they would probably be more supportive. We certainly need to do more public education with the aim of eradicating the stigma of HIV/AIDS. That would help a lot with prevention.”
Marina, however, fears that the WHO warning, while revealing the gravity of HIV/AIDS situation in Malaysia, might also result in an adverse reaction from the people.

“My greatest fear is that people will panic and demand the wrong sort of programmes, such as isolation of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs).
“We need people to be calm and approach the situation based on scientific evidence of what works and what doesn’t. Malaysia is not the first country in the world to be in this situation, so we do not need to invent anything. All we need to do is adapt proven prevention programmes to our circumstances,” she explains.
She says the success of many countries in successfully tackling HIV/AIDS revealed that what was most needed was a multisectoral approach to this disease.

“This means that prevention is being done not just by one group but by everyone in a well-coordinated way. And there needs to be many different approaches to reach many different types of people. As long as we insist that there is only one way of doing things and keep waiting for someone to do that work, we have no hope of tackling HIV/AIDS at all.

Marina stresses that leadership at the highest level was needed to tackle the HIV/AIDS problem, adding that it was heartening to note the Malaysian Government’s decision to implement harm-reduction measures to tackle HIV/AIDS.
“Why has Uganda managed to bring down its HIV/AIDS numbers? It is because President Yoweri Museveni himself heads the national AIDS committee. This is the only way to ensure things will move,” she says.
Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek had recently said that 1, 200 drug users will be given condoms and needles in Government hospitals and clinics beginning October on a trial basis. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had said that the plan was the best so far in tackling the HIV/AIDS situation.

Drug abuse is responsible for the bulk of HIV/AIDS cases in Malaysia. There are 13,000 intravenous drug users and a big number of them share needles, escalating the risk of infection.
“It is because we have reached a critical stage in our HIV epidemic that we require these measures. It would have been good if we had done this long ago but still it is not too late to do something now,” Marina says.
She points out that during MAC’s nationwide training of Muslim religious leaders, it was found that at the grassroot level, the leaders yearned for more knowledge on HIV/AIDS.
“These leaders are faced with the issue but without proper knowledge, they do not know how to help and feel helpless. They were happy when we conducted the workshops and asked for more.”
Marina, however, worries most for PLWHAs as they not only had to endure physical suffering but also mental and emotional anguish in the form of discrimination and neglect by people around them.
“Being turned away by one’s family and close friends must be the most painful thing to experience. If society gets panicky and hysterical and starts clamouring for isolation, then we will end up causing more suffering for PLWHAs in our country. We should be ashamed of such lack of compassion towards our own people.”
She also stressed on the importance of involving PLWHAs in the planning and implementation of HIV/AIDS programmes.
“They know what caused them to become infected and they alone know what it is like to be infected. We will not dream of designing programmes for the blind without their input so how can we design programmes for HIV/AIDS without the involvement of PLWHAs? We do this because we think that once someone gets infected, they do not have any brains anymore. That is what is known as prejudice and discrimination,” Marina says.
Marina will be among the participants from Malaysia attending the Seventh International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) in Kobe, Japan, from Friday to July 5.

Decision On Anti-HIV Virus Pioneer Programme After Fatwa

Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the government will make a final decision on the pioneer programme to give needles, condoms and methadone substitution drugs to addicts in a move to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS after getting an official edict from the National Fatwa Council.
The Deputy Prime Minister said the government had asked the fatwa council to undertake a study on the implementation of the controversial programme according to Islamic jurisprudence.
"The National Fatwa Council is studying (the programme) according to Islamic jurisprudence...give the National Fatwa Council a chance to come up with an official fatwa," he said when opening the 30th annual general assembly of the National Association Against Drug Abuse (Pemadam) at the Banquet Hall of the Perak Darul Ridzuan Building, here Saturday night.
The cabinet had earlier decided to implement the pioneer programme of the Health Ministry beginning October this year because it considered the HIV/AIDS scourge in this country had reached the "emergency" level.
However, the programme was disputed by various quarters especially religious leaders as well as Pemadam who feared that giving the methadone would not help efforts at eliminating drug addiction.
Najib said the government's proposal to implement the programme was also in accordance with the two principles of Islamic jurisprudence namely the fact that the situation had reached an emergency level, and the permission to choose between the lesser of two evils.
The problem of HIV infection in the country had now become a serious threat and had reached a critical stage which could lead to an emergency situation because the spread was going on an upward trend, he said.
"The Malaysiam graph is rising whereas countries such as Australia, whose population equals that of Malaysia, is registering a decline...now 64,000 Malaysians are infected with HIV, if this trend continues in the next two or three years, between 200,000 and 300,000 people may be infected," he said.
The Deputy Prime Minister said that based on Islamic jurisprudence, in an emergency situation that could lead to death, anything that was forbidden could be permissible.
He said if the HIV virus was not controlled, hundreds of thousands of people could become victims and this was much worse than efforts at controlling that we would like to give a try.
Najib said the treatment using methadone, for example, was found to be successful in other countries including Muslim nations such as Iran which had succeeded in curbing the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus.
He said such an approach had been recommended by the United Nations as a new method in addressing the problems of drug addiction and HIV virus.
He said he had been told by a medical parctitioner that this approach had a success rate of 80 per cent in rehabilitating addicts whereas the success rate of the Drug Rehabilitation Centres was only between 10 and 15 per cent.

2,500 commit suicide every year

About 2,500 Malaysians commit suicide every year, mainly due to depression.
Most overdose on drugs, hang themselves or inhale carbon monoxide.
Malaysian Psychiatric Association president Dr Maniam Thambu, who revealed this, added: "Nowadays, an increasing number of people are jumping off buildings."
Dr Maniam said a study on suicides in Kuala Lumpur some years ago showed that more people were jumping off buildings because there were many high-rises in the city.
He said 90 per cent of people who killed themselves suffered from depression, adding that this was a glaring warning about the danger of depression.
Mental illness is in second place on the global list of top diseases, after heart diseases, and if present trends continue, it will be a major problem in Malaysia.
Worried about the trend, the association is working out various strategies in collaboration with the Health Ministry and the Befrienders.
Among the proposals is to treat those suffering from depression more effectively and to reduce public access to poisons such as the weed killer, paraquat.
"We would also like to request that the Health Ministry propose to the Cabinet that websites encouraging suicide be blocked," said Dr Maniam at the 11th Malaysian Conference on Psychological Medicine.
Deputy director-general of Health Datuk Dr Abdul Ghani Mohammed Din opened the conference. Dr Maniam said: "Five years ago if you typed the word ‘suicide’ into a search engine, you would have had 700,000 entries. Now you will get more than four million."
Dr Maniam said some of these websites even offered step-by-step tips on how to take one own’s life using various methods.
At a Press conference later, he recalled a letter he received from a father in the United States who found his teenage son lying dead on a table in his room.
On the son’s computer was a page offering a "how to" procedure on committing suicide.