Hafiz struggling due to poor fitness!

LACK of fitness is one of the reasons for Hafiz Hashim’s struggles on the international scene and the shuttler will get the assistance of a sports science specialist to help regain his form.
National chief coach Yap Kim Hock, after meeting with the National Sports Council’s (NSC) special task team in Bukit Jalil yesterday, said Rosdie Abdul Ghani will be in charge of Hafiz’s fitness programme.

Rosdie, who has been Lee Chong Wei’s fitness coach for two years, has already started working with Hafiz.

"Hafiz’s fitness is a major concern and because of this, he is regularly getting injured. Hafiz will undergo fitness training under Rosdie and his progress will be monitored," said Kim Hock.

"We cannot let Hafiz continue like this as the World Championships (Aug 13-19) are just three months away and the qualifying period for the Beijing Olympics has also started.
"Rosdie has the experience of assisting Chong Wei and also Wong Choong Hann and we hope that Hafiz can gain from the arrangement."

Hafiz, except for a semi-final appearance in the Korea Open in January, has failed to get past the preliminary rounds in six tournaments this year and most defeats were attributed to his inconsistency and his alarming lack of fitness.

Despite being ranked World No 9, Hafiz has lost in the first round four times this year. — By K.M. Boopathy

Nst.com.my

Malaysia plans to produce own vaccine in three years

BERNAMA

Malaysia plans to set up its own vaccine production centre in three years, Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek said.
“Currently, Malaysia is dependent on the import of vaccine, and that is why we are trying to develop our own vaccine production,” he said.

“It will cost about RM800 million to RM1 billion to set up a vaccine production centre, including the hi-tech and research centre. We want to do a vaccine centre together with a research facility,” he told reporters after launching the Kuala Lumpur OIC (Organisation of the Islamic Conference) Health Ministerial Conference 2007 web page today.

Dr Chua said Malaysia used to produce vaccine but somehow or rather it was closed down.

“That was many years ago and now we better restart all over again. We hope in three years’ time,” he said.
The minister said the government expenditure on vaccines was between RM80 million to RM100 million annually.

He said it appeared that Malaysia imported the vaccines from the western countries.

This was because all these vaccines needed to have some pre-qualification requirement stipulated by the World health Organisation (WHO) and could not be simply purchased from anywhere.

When asked on the status of immunization programme in Malaysia, Dr Chua said: “It is the same as those in advanced countries. If you talk about basic immunization, I would say we have achieved nearly 100 per cent.”

“In Malaysia, we are lucky in the sense that we make it compulsory because firstly, there is political commitment and secondly, we have excellent physical health facilities which enable the people easy access,” he said. In the peninsula, he said 90 percent of the people were living within five kilometres from the health facilities.

To date there are 130 hospitals and 4,000 clinics, including the mobile ones.

“So a simple programme like this needs commitment and accessibility to the health facilities,” he said.

Dr Chua pointed out that because of the good immunization programme in the country, Malaysia was able to bring down its mortality rate among children.

“The infant mortality rate when we achieved independence was 75 per 1,000 children. Today, we have reduced it to 5.1 per 1,000.

“The mortality rate of children less than five years old used to be 57 per 1,000, (but) today it has been reduced to 8.8 per 1,000,” he said adding that these figures were comparable to a lot of the developed countries’ figures.

Nst.Com.My