KUALA LUMPUR: Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa has give her assurances of the preparedness of her ministry, including in terms of surveillance, equipment and cooperation between agencies, to deal with "Disease X".
She said the ministry's experience in mitigating the Covid-19 pandemic had helped them to always be prepared and pay attention to any warnings on new diseases in Malaysia and abroad.
She said the ministry's Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (CPRC) works with the Veterinary Services Department, as well, in monitoring the diseases.
Dr Zaliha cited the Nipah Virus in Kerala, India as an example.
She said the ministry's Public Health Department continued to monitor the entire country and looked at the source of the virus, namely bats and pigs.
"The system would be immediately alerted (if they are any new diseases)... we are prepared.
"In terms of Disease X, we were alerted by the World Health Organisation that there might be a pandemic in five years but we don't know what disease yet," she said in a media briefing session.
On Sept 25, Zaliha had given her assurances that Malaysia was prepared to face any future pandemic.
This comes as health experts warned that the next pandemic may be more devastating than Covid-19.
WHO has labelled this as-yet unknown and speculated disease as "Disease X".
WHO has recommended the immediate preparation of a vaccine as a quick response, citing the fact that the world had been unprepared when facing Covid-19 in early 2020.