THE Covid-19 pandemic has taught us valuable lessons on deficiencies in health and social care systems.
People aged 60 and above account for the majority of Covid-19 deaths. This had led to a contraction of the life expectancy in Malaysia and many countries.
It beggars belief now that globally, everyone made the same mistake of denying treatment to those who are most likely to succumb.
The first lesson: treat those who most need it, not those who are most likely to get better. The second lesson: vaccines benefit older adults the most.
The Covid-19 pandemic has also shown we do have the mechanisms to vaccinate the entire population, and that vaccinations saved the lives of more older adults than any other age group.
The third lesson is that viral infections do lead to hospitalisation and death, particularly in older adults. With the availability of laboratory tests and scans, doctors and scientists could determine early in the pandemic that patients with Covid-19 did not only die of lung infections.
Many in fact died of blood clots in the lung, heart attacks, stroke and kidney complications weeks or months after the infection. There is also long Covid, which manifests as memory problems, fatigue, physical weakness and depression. These symptoms continue to plague many today.
There is now heightened awareness of so-called respiratory viruses, such as influenza, which were previously mostly undetected and untreated. This greater awareness has resulted in far better reporting of influenza cases in our country.
Furthermore, with widespread physical distancing and masking, the much-feared dip in natural immunity against respiratory viruses has now led to influenza returning with a vengeance with clear spikes in cases occurring after the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Prior to this, research at Universiti Malaya found a one-year rate of hospitalisation and death of 28 per cent among older persons with confirmed influenza infections. It also found that the complications of heart attacks, stroke, etc, are also applicable to other viral infections.
Vaccinations are able to prevent not just lung problems, but the short- and long-term complications, too.
The fourth lesson is to prevent illness in older adults to save our health system.
Post-pandemic, our health system is evidently struggling to cope with the apparent surge in activity. This surge will continue relentlessly unless a different approach is taken towards upstream measures to address prevention and early detection in the community.
In 2020, Malaysia crossed the threshold of an ageing nation, with seven per cent of the population above the age of 65. The proportion of the elderly in the population will hit 15 per cent in just 24 years.
For now, growing older is associated with accumulation of chronic medical conditions and disability, which will continue to be the trend unless the whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach for healthy ageing, as advocated by the United Nations, is brought to life here.
With this comes a preventive approach to health, and an excellent way to show that the government means business should be free influenza vaccination of senior citizens.
To mark the International Day of Older Persons (Oct 1), I urge the public to support this important cause by signing this petition: www.change.org/p/appeal-for-free-life-saving-annual-influenza-vaccinatio....
This is the time for our government to include annual influenza vaccination in older Malaysian residents into our national immunisation programme.
PROFESSOR TAN MAW PIN
President, Malaysian Society of Geriatric Medicine
Faculty of Medicine
Universiti Malaya