Fatty Acid Composition of Selected Street Foods Commonly Available in Malaysia.

Despite growing evidence of increased saturated and trans fat contents in street foods, little is known about their fatty acid (FA) compositions. This study aimed to analyse the saturated fatty acids (SFAs), monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), and trans fatty acids (TFAs) content of 70 selected and most commonly available street foods in Malaysia. The street foods were categorised into main meals, snacks, and desserts. TFAs were not detected in any of the street foods. Descriptively, all three categories mainly contained SFAs, followed by MUFAs, and PUFAs. However, the one-way ANOVA testing showed that the differences between each category were insignificant (p > 0.05), and each FA was not significantly different (p > 0.05) from one to another. Nearly half of the deep-fried street foods contained medium to high SFAs content (1.7 g/100 g-24.3 g/100 g), while the MUFAs were also high (32.0-44.4%). The Chi-square test of association showed that the type of preparation methods (low or high fat) used was significantly associated (p < 0.05) with the number of SFAs. These findings provide valuable information about fat composition in local street foods for the Malaysian Food Composition Database and highlight the urgency to improve nutritional composition.

Building health care leadership capacity in a developing country via Talent Grooming Programme (TGP): experience sharing from the Ministry of Health Malaysia.

PURPOSE: Formal structured leadership training is increasingly incorporated as a regular fixture in developed nations to produce competent leaders to ensure the provision of quality patient care. However, most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) rely on one-off external training opportunities for selected individuals as they lack the necessary resources to implement long-term training for a wider pool of potential health care leaders. This case study shares the establishment process of the Talent Grooming Programme for technical health care professionals (TGP), a three-year in-house leadership training programme specially targeted at potential health care leaders in Malaysia. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: This case study aims to share a comprehensive overview of the ideation, conceptualisation and implementation of TGP. The authors also outlined its impact from the individual and organisational perspectives, besides highlighting the lessons learned and recommendations for the way forward. FINDINGS: TGP set out to deliver experiential learning focusing on formal training, workplace experiences, practical reflection and mentoring by supervisors and other esteemed leaders to fulfil the five competency domains of leadership, organisational governance, communication and relationship, professional values and personal values. The successes and challenges in TGP programme delivery, post-training assessment, outcome evaluation and programme sustainability were outlined. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The authors' experience in setting up TGP provided valuable learning points for other leadership development programme providers. As for any development programme, a continuous evaluation is vital to ensure its relevance and sustainability. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: Certain aspects of TGP establishment can be referenced and modified to adapt to country-specific settings for others to develop similar leadership programme, especially those in LMICs.

Progression of the Pathway for Public Health Care during the COVID-19 Outbreak at District Health Office.

Public health activities under district health offices (DHOs) play a major role in Malaysia's fight against COVID-19. This article aims to describe and illustrate the public health activity pathway in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, and a team of public health workers who are familiar with DHO work settings was created in April 2020 for that purpose. Review of documents and the Ministry of Health's updates was carried out, followed by a series of discussions with stakeholders. Based on the steps in the outbreak investigation tasks, the flow of activities from January to May 2020 was listed in line with the phases of the country's National Movement Control Order 2020. Results show that the activities can be classified into three different sections-namely, the main action areas, category of cases, and level of care. The main process flow of activities comprised the case management and support activities. Case management flow was split into tasks for patients under investigation and persons under surveillance, while the support services existed throughout the phases. The pathways illustrate that the progression of the pandemic translated directly to changes in the pattern of activities, with additional subgroups of activities in accordance with all imposed guidelines.

Workforce Mobilization From the National Institutes of Health for the Ministry of Health Malaysia: A COVID-19 Pandemic Response.

The COVID-19 pandemic that emerged in 2019 has inflicted numerous clinical and public health challenges worldwide. It was declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organization and activated response teams at almost all Malaysian healthcare facilities. Upon activation of the National Crisis Preparedness and Response Center in January 2020, the National Institutes of Health Malaysia established a COVID-19 operation room at the facility level to address the rise in COVID-19 infection cases each day. The National Institutes of Health COVID-19 operation room committee formed a workforce mobilization team for an effective and efficient mobilization system to fulfill requests received for human resource aid within the Ministry of Health Malaysia facilities. Selected personnel would be screened for health and availability before mobilization letters and logistics arrangements if necessary. The workforce from the National Institutes of Health, consisting of various job positions, were mobilized every week, with each deployment cycle lasting 2 weeks. A total of 128 personnel from the six institutes under the National Institutes of Health were mobilized: tasks included fever screening, active case detection, health management at quarantine centers, and management of dead bodies. A well-organized data management system with a centralized online system integration could allow more rapid deployment and answer some of the key questions in managing a similar pandemic in the future. With improving infected COVID-19 cases throughout the country, the National Institutes of Health COVID-19 operation room was effectively closed on June 15, 2020, following approval from the Deputy Director-General of Health.