Health Ministry ready to conduct health screening on Rohingya - Dr Hilmi

The Health Ministry is prepared to conduct screening tests on the Rohingya migrants from Burma if they are accepted into the country, Deputy Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Hilmi Yahaya said today.

He said it was normal for health screening to be conducted on foreign nationals when they were accepted to live in the country to ensure they were disease-free.

"We will carry out health screening on them (Rohingya) to make sure they are in good health.

"What we should ensure is that they are free from diseases like diarrheoa, tuberculosis and Leptospirosis," he told reporters after a dinner hosted by the Malaysian Pharmaceutical Association at Batu Feringhi here last night.

He said this when asked on the Health Ministry's preparation if Malaysia was willing to accept the Rohingya migrants into the country.

In another development, Dr Hilmi said there were 12,800 pharmacists registered in the country, with 60 per cent of them in the public sector.

The current ratio of pharmacists in the population is 1:2,541 and the target is to reduce it to 1:2,000 next year, he added.

He praised the move by pharmacies in introducing postal and drive through deliveries of medicines to the public as it helped to reduce waiting time of patients to get their medicine supply.