KUALA LUMPUR, July 9 – What Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said a few days ago has come to pass – Malaysia today moved from containment to mitigation of the Influenza A(H1N1).
Liow said the transition was necessary as there were clusters of local transmission of the disease or sustained spreading within the community and new cases which had no defined epidemiological link with existing ones.
The decision to shift from containment to mitigation was reached after 12 workers at a private company in Cyberjaya and six trainees at the Malaysian Maritime Academy in Melaka tested positive for the virus.
Even when the situation is still under control, the decision to raise the level of seriousness is based on the World Health Organisation (WHO) guideline which specially spells out the action to be taken to deal with the influenza-like disease as its spread in the country reached the third-generation stage.
The WHO representative for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, Dr Han Theru, said it was the right time for Malaysia to move to the mitigation stage as it needed to focus more on how to reduce the damage to patients and society as more local cases were detected.
“I believe it would be a gradual process because at mitigation you need to focus on patients, early detection, early treatment, early diagnosis so that the patients can be treated and fully recover.
“The second thing is that you have to adjust by focusing on how to deal with seriously ill patients and mild patients as you have to use different approaches,” he told Bernama.
Dr Han said that while Malaysia moved from the containment to the mitigation stage, there were some other measures such as screening at the airport which could be maintained as it was still effective in detecting patients.
“Some countries such as Singapore have stopped contact tracing but still maintain screening at the airport,” he said.
In announcing the decision at the Health Ministry in Putrajaya today, Liow explained that the health authorities had to change their strategies to be more proactive as the spread had reached various communities but the public should not panic because most reported cases had been mild and all the patients were able to be treated without any death reported.
Liow also explained that the transition from containment to mitigation also meant better preparing the people to be responsible in preventing themselves from contracting the disease.
“We have not completely moved into the mitigation stage yet but we are in a transition period whereby containment measures, including border screening, will still be in place,” he said.
The containment stage is to slow down the spread of the virus from both outside and inside the country. Under the mitigation stage, measures would be taken to slow down the spread of the infection within the country.
With today’s decision (to move from containment to mitigation stage), mild cases without any complications would be given outpatient treatment and only high-risk groups, including those with asthma, chronic respiratory illnesses, diabetes, organ failure and obesity as well as pregnant women will be hospitalised.
The triaging of patients would continue to be implemented at medical facilities and patients with mild flu-like symptoms, including fever and cough, will undergo self-quarantine at home instead of being isolated in hospitals. – Bernama
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