LIVING WITH COVID-19: MOH TO RELEASE NEW SOP

NILAI, June 29 (Bernama) -- The Ministry of Health (MoH) will release details of the revised standard operating procedures (SOP) related to COVID-19 soon following the country's transition to the phase of living with the pandemic.

 Its minister, Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, said the revised SOP covers home surveillance order (HSO), use of face masks and the declaration of local areas of infection.

“As soon as we have the implementation date, the Director General of Health will release the details to the public.

“The details are technical. For example, the HSO was previously for five days and needed to update the symptoms in MySejahtera...with the review it may change.

“It is now an era where we start treating COVID-19 like other viruses such as influenza. We used to move from a pandemic to an endemic, now we want to get out of an endemic transition to living with the virus," he said.

He told reporters thus after opening the ministry’s Nutrition Month Malaysia (NMM) 2024 with the theme  “Change Mindset to Prevent Diet Related Diseases” here today.

Regarding today's programme, he said it aims to highlight the importance of a broad-based approach in encouraging the public to change their mindset towards the prevention of diet-related nutritional disorders and provide guidance for the adoption of healthy eating and active living practices.

He said the current prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the country is very worrying with the National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS) 2023 showing an increase in the prevalence of obesity and overweight to 54.5 per cent last year from 50.1 per cent in 2019.

"Consistently for the last decade, for every two Malaysian adults, one is overweight, while one in six adults has diabetes, showing that more than half of adults are exposed to the risk of getting NCDs due to uncontrolled obesity," he said

Dr Dzulkefly said the MoH has also drafted a Strategic Plan for Reducing Sugar Among Malaysians (2024-2030) to ensure more aggressive and targeted activities can be implemented in an integrated manner at various levels.

"It is to deal with excessive sugar intake through the War on Sugar initiative that will be launched soon,” he said.

-- BERNAMA