Nicol David Crashes Out of Commonwealth Without Medal – Surely a nightmare for our World No. 1 female squash player as she lost to Shelley Kitchen (World No. 15) in the bronze-medal match earlier this week. The loss is especially significant given that Nicol has not lost to Shelley in 3 years.
Mainland Penang Sees Bird Flu Outbreak – Another nightmare for our health authorities as a new outbreak of the H5N1 virus was discovered in a village located in the north of mainland Penang. This comes in the wake of similar outbreaks in the nearby state of Perak.
Not All Top Students Will Get Scholarships – Possibly a student’s greatest nightmare. But as I’ve written elsewhere, this is probably just an evasive measure from expected flak.

Hand Foot Mouth Disease in Malaysia

Filed under: Health, News — ZMAng @ 5:20 am

Although there shouldn’t be any need for West Malaysians to fear the Hand Foot Mouth Disease (HFMD), it is still saddening to see the recent spate of deaths from the disease in Sarawak. So far, the death toll is already at 6 (up from 5 before), and the approximate total number of children infected in Sarawak alone is at 3,984.

488 primary schools and kindergartens have been directed to shut down temporarily to prevent the disease from spreading further, but it seems there are some that refuse to obey the directive.

The primary reason why the death toll is such a small proportion of those infected is that getting HFMD does not necessarily mean death. There are two main variants of HFMD - the usually non-fatal Coxsackie A16 virus and the highly dangerous Enterovirus 71. Catching the Coxsackie A16 is normally a one-week affair (as long as treatment is conducted), while most deaths are caused by the Enterovirus 71.

In my opinion, this makes the current death toll all the more serious as there should only be a relatively small chance of children dying from the disease. Hopefully, both the authorities and administrators of public areas (like kindergartens) will take this to heart and ensure that containment and treatment are successful.

13th Mar | Comment

40 Chickens Die of Bird Flu - The H5N1 avian influenza virus strikes, killing 40 chickens in a confirmed - but isolated - case of bird flu.
Door-to-Door Inspections at Selangor Villages - The deaths of the 40 chickens at Selangor’s Jalan Genting-Klang has pushed the Government to conduct door-to-door checks of villages staying within a 300m radius of the earlier incident.
24-hour Surveillance Begins in Malaysia - Expanding upon the 300m radius inspections, the Government begins 24-hour 1 km radius inspections in areas where the H5N1 virus has or might take root.
Five Out of Seven Test Negative for Bird Flu - Seven were hospitalised for bird flu, with five testing negative for H5N1 later. The results for the remaining two are still unknown.

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