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A retired nurse recounts her visit to Malaya in 1953 where she helped to provide treatment for displaced Chinese people. Her lack of knowledge about cholera and malaria, which was prevalent, and the setting up of a clinic using medicine obtained from a cottage hospital several miles away is described. Common treatments were for ulcerated feet, caused by the rubber making process which involved treading acid-treated latex, and abscesses, and the most common complaints were anaemia amongst women and internal parasites in children.

Malaysia faces the problem of implementing its comprehensive anti-AIDS program due to strong opposition from various religious groups. Suggested measures to combat the disease such assex education programs, blood screening of prostitutes and the promotion of condom use were widely criticized. Deputy Health Minister Farid, together with some Muslim scholars, finally decided that the best solution is a comeback to the basic teachings of Islam.

Asian nations cannot afford to ignore the AIDS problem much longer. Although the number of AIDS cases in the region have been low, the statistics are unreliable. India and Thailand are learning that the false sense of security offered by statistics gave rise to health programs capable of neither arresting nor controlling the actual problem. The reaction of national governments to increase health budgets in proportion to the problem will only make other sectors suffer. Instead, governments and non-government organizations should work to fight drug use and prostitution, and at the same time try to reorient males about sex issues.

Because of local factors, the pattern of intestinal obstruction varies throughout the world. There has been rapid economic and social development in Malaysia, with a resultant change in pattern of intestinal obstruction. A report is presented of 100 patients in Malaysia who were treated surgically for intestinal obstruction; these findings were compared with the pattern of intestinal obstruction reported in 1976. In the recent study, 44 patients were over the age of 60. Sixty-five patients were ethnic Chinese (average age was 58 years), and 22 were Malays (average age was 44 years). Causes of obstruction did not differ between ethnic groups. The site of obstruction was the large bowel in 27 patients, small bowel in 56 patients, and 17 patients had multiple site involvement. Four patients died within a month of surgery. The rate of morbidity (illness) was high, at 35 percent. Contributing factors included strangulation of the bowel, delay in surgery, and multiple sites of obstruction. This study, compared with the earlier one, indicated a shift towards patients over 60 (from 35 percent to 44 percent); this correlates with increased life expectancy in Malaysia and more available surgical care. The preponderance of ethnic Chinese remained the same; the ethnic difference may be due to local socio-economic factors. Increasing migration of the Malay people from rural to urban areas has resulted in a younger population within the cities. Deaths from intestinal obstruction have fallen from 14 percent to 4 percent; this is probably due to earlier surgical intervention. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Malaysia must train 8,000 nurses each year if it is to meet community demand for ratios equivalent to other developed countries, according to Malaysian Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi [...]

A deadly, previously unknown virus that apparently spreads from pigs to humans has killed 111 people in Malaysia and neighbouring Singapore since October. Officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease [...]

More than 50 people have died and hundreds of thousands of pigs--the possible carriers of the infection--have been slaughtered in Malaysia after an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis. There have been [...]

THE enemy is more dangerous than it looks. On March 20th, Malaysia's army was deployed to kill thousands of pigs in an effort to contain outbreaks of Japanese encephalitis. The [...]

Malaysian-born doctor Gurcharan Singh invented the Tara KLamp to make ritual circumcisions fast, cheap, painless, and bloodless. Operating on the principle of cutting off the blood supply to the foreskin, it permits non-invasive surgery with little chance of contamination. It won a gold medal at the International Inventors Exhibition in Switzerland and retails for $14 in Malaysia, versus a surgery cost 20 times as high. Islamic law requires males to be circumcised before puberty.

'I'm in a third-world country, 10,000 miles from home, and I have acute appendicitis?' As the implications swept over me, my mind conjured up images of a primitive operating room [...]