The Institute of Medical Research (IMR) is coordinating bacteria surveillance for the New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase

(NDM-1) gene, which makes bacteria resistant to almost all antibiotics and thus turning them into "Superbugs".

Health director-general Dr Mohd Ismail Merican said the surveillance is performed by a network of hospital-based microbiology laboratories.

"Altough NDM-1 resistance does not appear to be frequent in Malaysia at this moment, gene sequencing will be done to detect the NDM-1 gene in gut bacteria at the IMR in the near future," he said in a statement today.

Currently, he said, E coli (gut bacteria) and pneumonia bacteria resistance to carbapenems, a class of beta-lactam antibiotics with a broad spectrum of antibacterial activity in Malaysia was low, approximately only 0.2 percent.

The NDM-1 gene first evolved in India but is now widespread in various parts of the Indian sub-continent.

It has now been isolated in the United Kingdom and also reported in the United States, Canada, Sweden, Australia and the

Netherlands.

Meanwhile, in a separate statement, Mohd Ismail said the Health Ministry would take a careful approach and consider the views of all stakeholders in preparing the National Health Financing Scheme.

He said ministy wanted to ensure the scheme would be much better without upsetting health financing systems already in place.

"It will be fairer and affordable and be able to cover the poor and less fortunate," he said, adding that this transformation was a big step and would take some time.

- Bernama