Antiviral flu for H1N1 in Malaysian Hospital - Taken from the TheSTaronline

I HOPE THIS IS TRUE!!

Friday August 7, 2009

Hospitals and clinics to get anti-viral drug, says Ismail

Reports by MAZWIN NIK ANIS, YENG AI CHUN, JADE CHAN and JACK WONG

PUTRAJAYA: Starting today, all government hospitals, clinics and selected private hospitals will have the influenza A (H1N1) anti-viral drug Tamiflu, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Ismail Merican said.

He, however, cautioned that all anti-viral drugs should not be taken as a preventive measure as this could result in the virus developing resistance to medication.

“Pharmacists are also warned not to sell anti-viral drugs to the public without a doctor’s prescription,” Dr Ismail told a press conference here yesterday.

He said that besides all government hospitals and clinics, 22 private hospitals nationwide would be supplied with Tamiflu.

Private clinics would also be allowed to obtain stocks from relevant suppliers.

“The suppliers have given us the assurance that there is sufficient supply of anti-viral medication,” he said.

Dr Ismail also warned doctors not to use anti-viral drugs to prevent a person from getting the flu.

“Not only have such measures been proven ineffective, they will also cause resistance to the medication as reported in the United States, Hong Kong, Mexico, Japan, Denmark and Canada,” he said.

Furthermore, he said the move would also deplete the resources for such medication.

Dr Ismail advised doctors and healthcare practitioners to be vigilant and take precautionary measures to prevent themselves from being infected.

He said that unlike the SARS outbreak where none of the healthcare personnel were infected, the H1N1 flu had caused a few to fall ill.

The death toll from influenza A (H1N1) rose to 14 with the latest casualty being a 57-year-old pensioner who was a diabetic and suffered from hypertension.

He was warded at the Putrajaya Hospital on Tuesday and died of acute pulmonary oedema the next day.

Health authorities also recorded 16 new cases in the 24 hours before 8am yesterday, all being local transmissions, bringing the total number to 1,492.

Abuse Video - NOT Teoh - Taken from MalaysiaToday.com

Video of Teoh being abused in custody is not him

THURSDAY, 06 AUGUST 2009 08:42

As the news of the inquest into the death of political aide Teoh Beng Hock starts, so have all the speculations and accusations. On Sunday August 2, an SMS were circulating calling for people to check online (YouTube) to view a video that showed how the late Teoh was assaulted and abused during custody. The video showed some five or six officers of which one of them claimed to be a cop beating up a man who was being interrogated. The link then spread like wild fire and very soon thousands have already viewed how badly a person (alleged to be Teoh) is being treated when in custody. While there is no claim in the site that the person in the video is Teoh, it depicts a frightening view of how suspects are being treated when being interrogated. According to the blogger who uploaded the video, “I would also like to present to you here a short video clip sent to me by a reader of this blog which exposes the obnoxious treatment of a suspect in custody.” Reports confirmed that the person in the video was not Teoh but ultimately it is the manner by which the person was treated which raised eye brows. Some point of transparency should be in place to ensure that suspects are treated fairly and that such violence must not be allowed or condoned in any way.

Smoke 40 Cigarettes As Punishment??? WHY?? - Extracted from TIMES online

From Times Online

August 6, 2009

Pupil forced to smoke 40 cigarettes in two hours as punishment

A 16-year-old pupil at a school in Malaysia was forced to chain-smoke for two hours after he was caught with a cigarette

Leo Lewis, Asia Business Correspondent

A 16-year-old pupil at a school in Malaysia has been forced as a punishment to chain-smoke 40 cigarettes in two hours after he was caught with a cigarette.

The two-packet marathon was carried out before an audience of students and teachers. As the deadline loomed and his cigarette consumption flagged, the boy said he had to smoke four cigarettes at a time.

The teacher who found the boy with a cigarette and a lighter was especially furious because, until then, the teenager had been a model of good behaviour and hard work.

A school official, who acknowledged to local reporters in Langkawi that the unorthodox punishment had been administered, assured reporters that it was not a normal feature of academic discipline and “did not happen often”.

Although the school later apologised to the boy’s family, the eccentric punishment joins a growing list of oddities from the world of Malaysian education. The favorite form of discipline in schools has for many years been beating with a salted rattan cane, though teachers occasionally attempt to be more inventive.

In 2007, a national outcry followed revelations that 200 schoolgirls were led from their dormitory outside into the pouring rain and made to crouch in a foetid pond for an hour. The punishment was carried out because nobody owned up to causing the school toilets to become blocked up.

Even the mainstream court system in Malaysia has its moments. On convicting a robber, a judge had to be legally restrained from carrying out the punishment of a ten-lash caning himself.