Day 6 – Communicable & Non-communicable Diseases Control

We’re torn today! We had spent the whole day long in the district health office listened to unstoppable talks by few officers, or perhaps it’s because of Kedah’s exclusive “Sunday Blue”.

As usual, we started the day by reporting ourselves to the district health office at eight. But all it’s been is sleazy platitude, as PPKPK Mohd Zin was on leave ; PPKP Haji Yaakob bin Ismail will only be free in the afternoon for TB, HIV, Leprosy talk ; PPKP Faizal bin Sidek who was going to talk about food and water borne communicable diseases will be available at nine. Sigh~ What can we do? Self study!

At nine, PPKP Faizal bin Sidek started his topic on food and water borne communicable diseases(27 of them). The scope were disease surveillance system(computerized), vaccines and immunization available, programmes organized by MOH(done by Unit Promosi Kesihatan), notification methods(phone/form/IE system), control programmes, job responsibilities and infrastructure as well as the strategies for epidemic investigation. He shared a lot of his experiences with us.

After that, a chinese pharmacist, Miss Tan was asked to give us a brief discussion on Methadone Maintenance Therapy(MMT). All in all, she mentioned that Methadone is a potent narcotic analgesic, which able to demolish the euphoric effect of heroin and with lesser withdrawal symptoms. MMT was done by DOT regime(Direct Observation Therapy). The drug abuser will be giving a syrup, with the initial dose of 15-30mg/day, slowly tapered up to a maintenance dose of 60-80mg/day. The methadone supply was from hospital. It was great as it’s safe to be consumed by maternal and the cost is low.Thus far, the best MTT centre was in Tampines, Negeri Sembilan.

Twelve in the noon, the only thing in our mind was LUNCH! Since it’s 2 and the half hours apart from the next session with PPKP Haji Yaakob bin Ismail, we had decided to go all the way to Alor Setar, for food hunting and “window car-ing”!

 

Comment on Alor Setar? Sg Petani better!

We were back in Pejabat Kesihatan Daerah Padang Terap at 2.15pm. While waiting for Tuan Haji Yaakob, we just walked around and looked at the notice board.

We spent the whole afternoon with PPKP Haji Yaakob on HIV, Leprosy and TB. He showed us a lot of forms, guidelines on HIV & TB cases, etc. As usual, there were Q&A session before he took off.

XoXo,

Padang Terap Group