One of the Many Things Bothering Me - H1N1 in Malaysia

One would think that I would feel at peace coming home to my beloved homeland.

So far, apart from great home cooking, and good company, its been less than desirable. 38 deaths in Malaysia itself due to H1N1. Did you know that under Wikipedia, we are the 11th country with the highest confirmed death rate?

And in the Star, there's an article entitled "Govt to launch large-scale H1N1 awareness campaign". Is that all the Government is doing? Other than ordering anti-viral medicine? Local clinics and public hospitals are reportedly unable to handle so many suspected cases, hence turning patients back home for home quarantine. Effective? Again I doubt it. It feels so much that Malaysia has been caught unprepared. And worst still, seemingly unable to control the situation.

Probably, too much politicking has been happening lately. Everyone has been so focused on the political nature of winning citizens hearts, that certain critical things seemed to have been not been given the focus. H1N1 wasn't given the appropriate attention in a timely manner that should have been:- It's a a deadly threat to not only Malaysians but the whole world. H1N1 awareness campaign??? Is that all we can do? What happened to controlling the borders? Checking people with temperatures, quarantining them at a proper healthcare facility? Awareness campaign?!!!!!! Just scream 38 deaths and 11th highest confirmed death rate in the world on every local newspaper headline, that should be enough for an awareness campaign. So much lip service, but seemingly so little action.

God help us. I fear for our future as a Country and as Malaysians in many ways. So much that I just posted my comment to The Star Online. I certainly hope so that someone in the authorities will sit up and do something "Real" and something "More" about it.

Please read on, H1N1 affects us as a world community.

My Comments:- "H1N1: Social Responsibility is Over-rated!"

Reading the newspapers these days has gotten me worried. A person can have H1N1 without even knowing it. How does one differentiate a normal flu from H1N1. Looks like a normal flu, talks like a normal flu.

It deeply concerns me that it looked as if H1N1 is only headlined when someone dies. It takes a life or many lifes in this case to be taken, in order to have somewhat of an attention given to it. Prevention is better than cure. I believe the government will need to take a more active role in dealing with this H1N1 instead of just passing it on as a social responsibility to the community. Unfortunately, it looks as if our government has acted too slowly in this case, and H1N1 spreading like wildfire. Home quarantined? One must surely wonder if this is really effective. What real actions is taken to prevent less people from bringing this desease in?

I was just at the airport a few days ago taking the MH378 flight back to Malaysia from Beijing. Out of curiosity, I especially noted the measures being taken on this H1N1 issues.

I had only noted TWO obvious measure. ONLY TWO. And they mostly only screamed out "social responsibility" to me.

The FIRST measure:- A declaration form prepared at the check in counter which detailed your particulars, seat number, and declaration of whether you've been to any H1N1 listed areas by the WHO. (Unfortunately, if one has not been reading the news or checking up on WHO's website, they would not know where those listed areas would be. The declaration form had no such listing, and assumed that passengers would know.) This declaration form had to be given to an officer waiting at one walkway of the area before catching the aerotrain. I assume was either from KLIA or from the government health department. Numerous people were not even aware that the form was mandatory. Effective? Obviously not.

The SECOND measure:- Distributing of pamplets entitled "Patient Home Care Advice" and "Health Alert Card" which in part advised the seeking of medical care when "you have difficulty breathing, or you're coughing out blood" among others. Now this really bothers me...I would have probably be very seriously ill before seeking medical attention. Effective? Again, screaming "CURE is the only way that we have. Forget prevention!"

If the pamplet was suppose to spread awareness, it would probably already be too late. From my observation, I was probably was the only few passengers who was using a facemask during my flight and when I was at both Beijing airport & KLIA and the number of passengers wearing masks at the airport were probably less than 1%. Again, I ask, "Is social responsibility the effective way? Or we not over-relying on this?"

ONE FINAL thing that really bothered me was that when I arrived in KLIA, there was no temperature check done at all. We left the plane easily AS USUAL.

Maybe we need to learn from our neighbouring countries, the sort of methods taken to detect possibly infected passengers. My parents were over in Beijing just a month ago on Airasia, and upon arrival, the Chinese officers actually check the temperature of each and every passenger on the plane itself, and not ONCE but TWICE. I waited for more than an hour for their disembarkation wondering what had happened. And it so happened that one passenger was detected with a fever, and the Chinese officers actually refused disembarkation to at least 5 or six rows of people around him. An ambulance came later to send these people to a special place for quarantine. Effective? Definately more so than just distributing pamplets & distribution forms.

I am really hoping that more emphasis will be equally put on PREVENTION rather than only just cure. Yes, we also need to emphasize on the CURE especially now, but not at the expense of PREVENTION. Here we are busy raising awareness on home quarantine and waiting for the anti-viral drugs to arrive, and on the other hand, very possibly more infected and unaware people are coming into the country. I very strongly disagree with the statement made by our Health Minister that "social distancing programmes and measures sufficed for now." Its simply NOT effective enough. Scarier still, it seems as if our private & public health sector is unable to deal with all these possible cases of H1N1.

38 deaths. How many more will have to die in order for someone to look seriously at PREVENTION and CURE in a more effective manner?