The second international conference on tropical medicine and infectious diseases by the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kuala Lumpur Royal College of Medicine Perak was held from Tuesday, September 29 to Thursday, October 1 at the Syeun Hotel, Ipoh.
Running on the theme “Diseases without Borders: Challenges and Preparedness”, the subjects discussed were highly contagious diseases such as Ebola, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Re-emerging Tuberculosis and drug resistance.
During its opening ceremony, Ipoh Echo had an exclusive one-on-one with Professor Dr TJJ Inglis from University of Western Australia, Australia and his colleague, Dr Vincent Cheng Chi Chung from Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong.
“One of the innovations highlighted is communications. Within Australia, public health laboratory network developed methods for rapid detection of Ebola virus within weeks of it becoming an international problem. There is also an international public health network of professionals in the major clinical and public health laboratories throughout the region that have been communicating very actively throughout this epidemic,” Inglis, who spoke on response in Western Australia to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, told Ipoh Echo.
Vincent had this to say, “In hospital, we have to try our best to prevent person-to-person transmission of the ultimate superbug (resistant to the most potent antimicrobial agent in the world). The means is so simple: Practise hand hygiene. For example, healthcare workers have to clean their hands before touching another patient. Unfortunately, the compliance rate is consistently less than 40 per cent because we are human, who tend to forget, especially under intense working pressure.”
Present at the opening ceremony were Datuk Dr Hj Yusof Hj Yacob, Chairman of UniKL Royal College of Medicine Perak, Hisshamuddin Omar, CEO and Head of Campus, Prof Dr Osman Ali, the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Dr Cheah Tong Soon, chairman of the organising committee.
Mei Kuan
