One of the five matters before being overtaken by its opposite as advocated by the Prophet (SAW) was "your health, before you fall sick" (Muslim). This concept of the Prophet's Medicine (Tibb Nabawi) has been much discussed and unfortunately misunderstood, even abused in recent times. This paper attempts to examine the Quranic exhortations on health and healing and its practices as exemplified by authentic traditions of the Prophet (SAW). This would enable us to extract guiding principles about various healthcare issues including holistic care, preventative strategies, training, bioethics, hospital services, clinical research and global health.
Invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) imposes a significant burden on the global community due to its high case fatality rate (4-20%) and the risk of long-term sequelae for one in five survivors. An expert group meeting was held to discuss the epidemiology of IMD and immunization policies in Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Most of these countries do not include meningococcal immunization in their routine vaccination programs, except for high-risk groups such as immunocompromised people and pilgrims. It is difficult to estimate the epidemiology of IMD in the highly diverse Asia-Pacific region, but available evidence indicate serogroup B is increasingly dominant. Disease surveillance systems differ by country. IMD is not a notifiable disease in some of them. Without an adequate surveillance system in the region, the risk and the burden of IMD might well be underestimated. With the availability of new combined meningococcal vaccines and the World Health Organization roadmap to defeat bacterial meningitis by 2030, a better understanding of the epidemiology of IMD in the Asia-Pacific region is needed.
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