Ischaemic diseases is the number 1 cause of death in Malaysia
The top three cause of death in Malaysia are ischaemic heart diseases, pneumonia and cerebrovascular diseases. All of them are related to poor health, contributing factors include diabetes, obesity and smoking.
Thus, the Health Ministry have been pushing forward in reducing such health issues in Malaysia. One of the most prominent initiative is the smoking ban at eateries. If a person wants to light up, he/she need be 3 meters away from the eating premise. Plus, the premise owners need to put up “no smoking” at the eateries.
The next step is to introduce plain packaging for cigarette packs. Unlike smoking ban, the Health Ministry will be going against big corporate to implement such policy. However, the plain packaging initiative is still currently under study.
Besides, traffic accident also causes a high amount of death in Malaysia, a total of 4,520 confirmed deaths. Transport Minister Anthony Loke said that the ministry will study the Road Transport Act in order to amend it and impose stricter penalty for traffic offenders. One of the suggestions is to impose a permanent ban on motorist who cause death.
Nevertheless, most of the initiatives have yet to be official besides the smoking ban. Plus, the smoking ban will not necessary reduce the number of smokers, but it will reduce the inhalation of second-hand smoke. As a conclusion, ministers need to implement more policies to create a healthier and safer Malaysia, not just coming out with ideas that will be forgotten months later.