It's been a while since I've written anything here, and this blog has notoriously picked up the nick-name "H1N1 blog"... well, if being a Public Health officer means I will have to do a lot of public health education, why not via Patch, right? Ah, then again, that's only a lame excuse for not blogging for long, and subjecting this blog to the longest series of cut-and-paste entries.
The past few weeks have been crazy, with instant specialising in infectious disease control - thanks to the seemingly unstopable H1N1 going into Beluran. What made it more tricky was that it started from the further end of the district, of which we would think of last as a place to have an outbreak, while the busiest part of Beluran still remain silent about any clusters of infection forming in its community.
We have been fed with news and bit and pieces of information regarding the pandemic, but that seemed like something we'd see on the TV or hear on the radio. We were all afraid of it, thinking that the infection would bring much suffering, much different from the usual colds that we've had before. I suppose this could be the reason why the infection came in silent in the town, because many people who has the infection did not suffer anything more than just a sniffle of runny nose, a fever that is promptly suppressed by over the counter paracetamol and malaise... well, who would think that malaise isn't what we normally feel after a good heavy lunch anyway. So most of the people endured the H1N1 unknowingly, while waiting for something that they suppose would send people collapsing dead on the floor as it attacks.
We're still maintaining the Bilik Gerakan Wabak at the district level, and monitoring the occurence of clusters of suspected H1N1 infection by analysing the Influenza-Like Illness surveillance, and hopefully we're looking at the tail end of the outbreak... I guess there should be a treshold whereby a certain percentage of population in a community would survive the infection, build up their own immunity and collectively, the herd immunity would somehow prevent the rest of the remaining population from getting the infetcion.
I have pictures to put up, the whole experience going into an infected community, closing schools and reopening them... but patience, I'm still editing them.
By the way, below is the excerpt from the press release by our Director-General of Health on 27.08.09:
Dimaklumkan sehingga 27 Ogos 2009 jam 9.00 pagi, sejumlah 260 pesakit baru dengan gejala influenza-like illness (ILI) telah dimasukkan ke hospital untuk rawatan, manakala 312 kes telah didiscaj keluar. Ini menjadikan baki seramai 1,394 pesakit ILI sedang dirawat di 94 buah hospital termasuk 5 hospital swasta di seluruh negara. Dari jumlah ini, hanya 259 pesakit (19%) yang disahkan positif H1N1.
Daripada 259 kes yang disahkan H1N1, 53 kes berada di ICU dimana 8 kes merupakan kemasukan baru, sementara 4 lagi kes dipindah keluar dari ICU. Daripada 53 kes yang sedang dirawat di ICU, 41 (77%) mempunyai faktor risiko. Pecahan kes mengikut faktor risiko adalah seperti berikut: penyakit kronik (17), obesiti (14), kanak-kanak/bayi (7), post-natal/hamil (2) dan Sindrom Down (1).
Untuk makluman, tiada kematian baru yang disahkan akibat jangkitan influenza A(H1N1) didaftarkan pada hari ini.
The past few weeks have been crazy, with instant specialising in infectious disease control - thanks to the seemingly unstopable H1N1 going into Beluran. What made it more tricky was that it started from the further end of the district, of which we would think of last as a place to have an outbreak, while the busiest part of Beluran still remain silent about any clusters of infection forming in its community.
We have been fed with news and bit and pieces of information regarding the pandemic, but that seemed like something we'd see on the TV or hear on the radio. We were all afraid of it, thinking that the infection would bring much suffering, much different from the usual colds that we've had before. I suppose this could be the reason why the infection came in silent in the town, because many people who has the infection did not suffer anything more than just a sniffle of runny nose, a fever that is promptly suppressed by over the counter paracetamol and malaise... well, who would think that malaise isn't what we normally feel after a good heavy lunch anyway. So most of the people endured the H1N1 unknowingly, while waiting for something that they suppose would send people collapsing dead on the floor as it attacks.
We're still maintaining the Bilik Gerakan Wabak at the district level, and monitoring the occurence of clusters of suspected H1N1 infection by analysing the Influenza-Like Illness surveillance, and hopefully we're looking at the tail end of the outbreak... I guess there should be a treshold whereby a certain percentage of population in a community would survive the infection, build up their own immunity and collectively, the herd immunity would somehow prevent the rest of the remaining population from getting the infetcion.
I have pictures to put up, the whole experience going into an infected community, closing schools and reopening them... but patience, I'm still editing them.
By the way, below is the excerpt from the press release by our Director-General of Health on 27.08.09:
Dimaklumkan sehingga 27 Ogos 2009 jam 9.00 pagi, sejumlah 260 pesakit baru dengan gejala influenza-like illness (ILI) telah dimasukkan ke hospital untuk rawatan, manakala 312 kes telah didiscaj keluar. Ini menjadikan baki seramai 1,394 pesakit ILI sedang dirawat di 94 buah hospital termasuk 5 hospital swasta di seluruh negara. Dari jumlah ini, hanya 259 pesakit (19%) yang disahkan positif H1N1.
Daripada 259 kes yang disahkan H1N1, 53 kes berada di ICU dimana 8 kes merupakan kemasukan baru, sementara 4 lagi kes dipindah keluar dari ICU. Daripada 53 kes yang sedang dirawat di ICU, 41 (77%) mempunyai faktor risiko. Pecahan kes mengikut faktor risiko adalah seperti berikut: penyakit kronik (17), obesiti (14), kanak-kanak/bayi (7), post-natal/hamil (2) dan Sindrom Down (1).
Untuk makluman, tiada kematian baru yang disahkan akibat jangkitan influenza A(H1N1) didaftarkan pada hari ini.
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