#07.01.15

Today, our morning lecturer was Dr. Rodger Doran who used to work for the UN and WHO (World Health Organization). One of the main topics we talked about was on the topic of communicable disease. More specifically, we touched on a specific aspect of communicable disease namely the ‘re-emerging communicable diseases’. We learned in his class that re-emerging communicable diseases are diseases that had been controlled in the past but ‘emerge’ back again at a later time. This topic made me immediately think of one of the articles that I read for this class, “Why tuberculosis persists as a global problem,” because the article talks about how TB could have been eradicated back in 1970s but measures were not being taken properly so now there are many multidrug-resistant TB’s that are even harder to deal with. This is a great example of the lack of proper measures and real actions to be taken on healthcare related problems. A quote from this article that struck me really hard was “there is greater interest in acquiring new knowledge than in using it unless it is commercially profitable.” I find myself wondering and getting upset at how TB could have been eliminated. So many people around the world have been, and are still, being affected by this disease. Many migrants are also being blamed for carrying TB’s and spreading it in many countries. The issue of not utilizing the knowledge acquired for a solution is a big issue, because it’s one of the main causes that make re-emerging communicable diseases still existing. More actual doings have to be taken place, instead of just thinking about them, otherwise, more cases like this will keep continuing without anyone noticing.

Another topic we talked about in his class was on the topic of Communicable Disease Control (CDC) responsibilities. I learned that one of CDC’s responsibilities is to make sure that the public understand the problem and their roles in implementing the measures that are being taken. As with the previous topic, it made me think of another article called “Out of Africa: a baffling variety of diseases” that I read for this class. This article talks about how many new diseases keep appearing around the world, especially in underdeveloped countries, because there are not enough disease surveillances around. This article gives an example of a particular virus called Nipah virus, which had been infecting people in Malaysia for four years. The article gives an explanation that “no one noticed because no one had really looked.” This shocking statement seems harsh, but most likely true. Many bugs that are vectors for many diseases exist in certain places for a long time without being detected. I believe that in order to decrease new diseases from appearing (or present diseases to keep existing) it’s not just CDC that is responsible; everyone else is too. Even after CDC finds out what the causes of an outbreak are, the public needs to cooperate and do their jobs of carrying out the measures to decrease diseases from spreading, etc. Everyone has to always be on the lookout for public health danger. I believe this is a big issue for migrants, who might not be familiar with how CDC in their new countries work, or might have language and cultural barriers. As always, working together with the migrants and making them feel belong are very important. It can reduce a lot of misunderstanding and discrimination towards the migrants due to their lack of knowledge.

Towards the end of Dr. Doran’s lecture, he let us do an activity where we got into groups and came up with ideas of what we’d do if we had to deal with a group of people who were forced to move away from their homes by a conflict. I think it was a really good exercise because we got to explore a lot of aspects of forced migration that I had never thought of before.

After lunch, Teacher Noey (her name means butter in Thai!) who is a medical student led the Design Lab classroom and taught us how to interview the migrants that we will meet soon. She suggested that there should be no more than three people who are doing the interview at a time. Since each group has 5 people, three people will be the ones asking questions, one will be taking notes, and the last one will be the one taking pictures. These roles can be switched throughout the interview as needed. We also got a chance to come up with a list of questions that we will use to ask the migrant women that we will be interviewing. I’m really excited!

[07.01.15] Ceramah Perdana Maulidur Rasul-Tuan Guru Dato Dr.Ustaz Haron Din

Sebarang sumbangan untuk kelancaran rakaman majlis ilmu secara langsung sekitar Lembah Klang boleh disalurkan ke akaun Maybank Mohd Jazimin Bin Aziz ( 164016925833 ) … Video Rating: 5 / 5