Talk on Malaysia’s second leading cause of death touches a raw nerve
Stroke is Malaysia’s second leading cause of death behind heart disease. There are 40,000 new victims every year. About 14,000 of them, slightly more than one-third, died. Such is the solemn and frightening picture painted by Christina Liew, Sabah’s tourism, culture and environment minister, at a Stroke Awareness Talk in Kota Kinabalu on Oct 21 to mark World Stroke Day.
Closer to home, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kota Kinabalu reported 336 cases of stroke in the first eight months of this year. Eighty-two were brain haemorrhage and 254 had blood to their brain cut off. What is worrying is that stroke patients are becoming younger: 162 patients were younger than 60. Of these 51 were below 45. And most of the time it catches the victim unaware and thus earns it the nickname, “the silent killer”.
Most of these victims suffered hypertension and diabetes and had led an unhealthy lifestyle: smoking and boozing. Liew thus says that stroke is preventable if people are careful of their diet and above all to avoid smoking and alcohol – two of the culprits.
Yet there is a gratifying growth in public interest in stroke with attendance at the talk almost doubling to 130. There were heart-wrenching stories of stroke survivors on the side. And credit goes to Vivien Lee, who heads the women’s wing of the Kota Kinabalu branch of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (People’s Justice Party), in organising the talk.
Still there is a long way to go to instil public awareness of the deadly disease that could be kept at bay through some lifestyle changes.
Sabah Insights 