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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.

Moringa oleifera seed oil is a promising medicinal oil and converting it into a functional food emulsion is of current interest to widen its consumption. This study was aimed to investigate physicochemical properties and stability of M. oleifera seed oil-in-water emulsions as affected by interaction between polysaccharide i.e. xanthan gum (XG), guar gum (GG), carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and emulsifier i.e. sodium caseinate (NaCas) and whey protein isolate (WPI). Significant (p < 0.05) lower pH values in XG-WPI (4.98) and XG-NaCas (4.72) emulsions were observed as opposed to other emulsions (5.19-5.40). The interaction between XG-WPI and XG-NaCas has resulted in significant (p < 0.05) higher apparent viscosity values (at 0.42s-1) of their respective emulsions with 35.10 and 10.75 Pa.s respectively, as compared to other emulsions (0.35–0.85 Pa.s). These desirable characteristics of pH and viscosity profile had favoured an excellent creaming stability (no phase separation) of the emulsions. Regardless of emulsifier used, XG emulsions exhibited a significant (p < 0.05) higher scavenging activity (34.84 – 41.52%) towards 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl free radicals than other emulsions. Total oxidation values (11.18 – 24.93) under an accelerated oxidation period (48 hours, 60°C) were more influenced by peroxide value rather than anisidine value. All WPI emulsions and CMC-NaCas emulsion showed significant (p < 0.05) low total oxidation values relative to other emulsions. All emulsions however showed no significant difference in their turbidity loss rate (1.2 – 3.3 x 10-3). These findings have made possible of producing a good quality of a functional food emulsion based on M. oliefera seed oil, particularly when the system was stabilized by XG-WPI. This was mainly due to their positive interaction that has affected on pH and viscosity of emulsion, which eventually led to a good stability towards creaming and inhibition of lipid oxidation.

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.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect(s) of a mixture ofNigella sativaseeds (N. sativa; black cumin or fennel) and honey on (i) the modulation of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risks among hypercholesterolemic and healthy subjects; and (ii) to assess the lipid-soluble antioxidants capacity of samples using the photochemiluminescence (PCL) method. Sixty-five subjects, aged twenty-five to fifty-eight, were enrolledand assigned to three groups. Two groups of healthy andhypercholesterolemic subjects were supplemented with N. sativa seeds and honey at 50 mg/kg (body weight) daily for three months. The third group served as control (healthy subjects without supplementation). Fasting blood samples were taken at baseline and again after three months of supplementation to measure (i) total cholesterol (TC), (ii) triglycerides (TG), (iii) low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-c), (iv) high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-c), (v) blood glucose, and (vi) hemoglobin concentrations. The findings were significant (p  0.05),indicatingthat N. sativa seeds mixed with honey had hypolipidemic, antiobesity and hypotensive effects.Results showed significant reductions in TG (20.1%), TC:HDL-c (12.3%),accompanied by increased HDL-c (15.0%) among healthy subjects.Supplementation also significantly decreased TC (6.2%), TG (13.3%), TC:HDL-c (19.5%),with increased HDL-c (8.4%) in the hypercholesterolemic group. Furthermore, there were significant reductions in body weight, body mass index and body fat by 2.3%, 2.2%, 4.5%, and by 1.8%, 1.9%, 4.5% in healthy and hypercholesterolemic subjects, respectively. Blood pressureslowering werealso observed in hypercholesterolemic subjects with significant reductions in systolic blood pressure (3.9%) and diastolic blood pressure (5.5%). There were no significant effectsfromsupplementation on blood glucose or hemoglobin concentrations. It is postulated that the positive effects observed may be due to antioxidant activity. The combination of of N. sativa seeds with honey showed higher synergistic effectswhen compared withsupplementation ofN. sativa seeds or honey on their own. Overall, these findings suggest that a mixture of N. sativa seeds with honey hasbeneficial effects in loweringthe citedrisk indicators for cardiovascular disease as a natural source of antioxidant activity; thus aidingthe maintainence of health bylowering CVD risk factors.

This research was undertaken to investigate the effect of Roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa. L) extract on the physical properties and stability of extra virgin olive oil emulsions. Four different emulsions were prepared with methanolic Roselle extract (0.01 and 0.02%) and 0.02% BHT (commercial antioxidant) as well as without the extract/ antioxidant (control). The physical properties were studied in terms of pH, droplet size distribution, microstructure, viscosity and stability towards phase separation and lipid oxidation (under accelerated oxidation at 60°C for 10 days). The emulsions with Roselle extract was found to exhibit lower polydispersity and more uniform droplet size as compared to control and BHT emulsions. The highest viscosity was observed for the emulsion with 0.02%. The BHT emulsion was the most unstable towards phase separation after 15 days of storage at 5°C. A protective effect of Roselle extract against lipid oxidation in the emulsions was clearly observed at 0, 2, 8 and 10 days of accelerated storage (at 60°C) with considerably low total oxidation values (5.4 to 13). All emulsions showed insignificant deterioration with peroxide value < 20 meq/kg after oxidation period. This study provided important preliminary data on possibility of applying Roselle extract (which is known to content a significant amount of bioactive compounds) in producing functional food emulsions with acceptable properties and stability. Keywords: antioxidants, emulsion, roselle extract, stability, properties