DECEMBER , 2023 | THE HEALTH

| The Health says ... |

P23

No monkey business Increasing community awareness and teaching healthcare professionals on infection prevention and transmission control are key components of monkeypox prevention and control

P24

Men ’ s mental health : Breaking the silent suffering Improving men ’ s mental health involves a combination of individual , community and societal strategies

12-13

P25

Myelin healing : A paradigm shift Myelinated fibre tracts are especially susceptible to many disease-causing processes , and myelin disorders are often linked to long-lasting inflammation of the nervous system

P26

Do we decide better using our emotions ? We can make decisions using the prefrontal cortex , the executive brain , which is what conventional wisdom suggests or rely on emotions , the flurry of feelings arising from the limbic system

P27

Honey , it ’ s the new year ! May 2024 continue to be sweet and fit and free from any severe ailments

His first Press conference , just a week after his appointment on Dec 12 , was on containing a surge in Covid-19 cases . Ironically , he was also Health Minister in March 2020 at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic . But he lost his job when the Pakatan Harapan government collapsed that month .

Dr Dzulkefly knows about managing Covid-19 as he later headed Selangor ’ s Covid-19 task force council in 2020 . Selangor had one of the highest infections in the country .

The five strategies he announced on Dec 19 to contain the latest surge in cases are a Heightened Alert System ( HAS ), TRISS ( Test , Report , Isolate , Inform and Seek ), managing and controlling cases through medication , effective risk communication , and digitisation of the health care system .

Managing Covid-19 today must be different from that of nearly four years ago . For one , there is no need to push the public to take the controversial booster vaccine . It is unclear how effective booster vaccines will be against Covid-19 , but on the other hand , there are many claims of adverse side effects with some deaths .

There are , therefore , two primary questions to address . Firstly , are the vaccines safe and secondly , are they efficacious ? Immunity and vaccines have complex correlations which must be fully investigated .

But instead of going through the vaccination route immediately , why not introduce and enforce other measures , such as compulsory face mask mandates in healthcare facilities and public transport , considered high-risk spaces ?

Also , why not encourage companies to get employees to work from home where possible ? This will increase productivity through less absenteeism and , at the same time , reduce the risk of new infections .

Now that doctors in Malaysia can prescribe Ivermectin following a court ruling this year , shouldn ’ t that also be a treatment option or preventive measure for managing Covid-19 ?

Don ’ t wait for a crisis to erupt . The government must realise the devastating financial and social impact of Movement Control Orders ( MCOs ) during the pandemic . Thousands of businesses went bust , and hundreds of thousands of jobs lost .

We should avoid MCOs at all costs . Learn from the mistakes of the previous government .