SHAH ALAM: Malaysia needs to move from practising curative medicine to promotive, predictive and preventive approaches, Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad said today.
He said the major portion of diseases in the country was non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and much can be done to reduce this.
He said life expectancy had also reached a plateau for more than a decade now, with 73.5 years for men and 78.9 years for women.
He said the ministry was also trying to mitigate challenges from a growing number of multimorbid patients, ageing population and a fragmented care delivery that has resulted in ineffective and expensive care.
Speaking at the opening of the 13th Health Ministry - Academy of Medicine Malaysia Scientific Meeting and the 21st NIH Scientific Seminar here today, he said several initiatives have been taken by the ministry to raise the health quality of the country.
The first is community engagement activities such as the Healthy Community Builds the Nation (Kospen) programme involving over 974 localities and more than 36,000 volunteers with the mission of screening NCD risk factors.
To date, more than 821,600 people have been screened.
The second is the Enhanced Primary Healthcare initiative that emphasises on the improvement of NCD care management for patients at 20 primary healthcare clinics in Selangor and Johor.
The third is the Communication for Behavioural Impact (COMBI) that was introduced by WHO and implemented by ministry since 2001 to combat communicable and NCDs.
As of June this year, 2,761 COMBI localities with more than 30,000 members have been established.
The fourth is the Without AIDS for Youth programme, which aims to empower youths aged 13 to 25 years old to be peer counsellors in healthy lifestyle.
The event was also attended by Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz, who was chosen as its 15th Tunku Abdul Rahman Orator.
The academy also saw 14 academicians being conferred the fellowship and 148 new members inducted.
More than 700 delegates attended the event at the newly -pened National Institutes of Health complex in Setia Alam here.