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MDA Message History
Message From President MDA 2019/21 JANUARY / MARCH 2020 by Dr Leong Kei Joe
Publish Date: 16/04/2020

Message From President MDA 2019/21

JANUARY / MARCH 2020

Dear beloved members and colleagues,

Happy belated and blessed New Year 2020. Indeed, my dear beloved members, we entered into the New Year 2020 with a huge challenge ahead. The concern of COVID-19, formerly known as 2019 – nCOV, outbreak outside our country has now entered into our country. The concern of the escalating cases of COVID-19 has hit our nation hard and affected many aspects / sectors in our country, in our daily lives, in our daily practices with many our dental practitioners facing problem of acute shortage of surgical face masks. Though our annual scientific meeting at the beginning of the year, the 27th MDA Scientific Convention and Trade Exhibition 2020 managed to pull off at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, 14th – 16th February 2020, we had to see some lectures and masterclass conducted using teleconferencing and even one workshop was shortened due to travelling constraint by the speakers. We also faced issues where some of our international delegates need to cancel their trip to this event because of travel restrictions. Stringent actions were taken to ensure the safety of our delegates, trade exhibitors and visitors to this event. Nevertheless, albeit all of these, the whole scientific event went well and uneventful. I wish to thank the organising committee, led by Dr Lim Chiew Wooi, our President Elect of MDA, all our sponsors, trade exhibitors, delegates and visitors for your support and understanding.

MDA is also saddened by a difficult decision made to cancel the national launching of the World Oral Health Day 2020 celebration, initially planned for 20th March 2020, as we are called to adhere to the restrictions of mass gathering imposed by our authorities following the rising concern of COVID-19 outbreak. MDA strongly believes that everyone have to play their part in curbing the spread of this virus outbreak. This restriction of mass gathering also gave a direct blow to MDA Eastern Zone with the 10th Borneo Dental Congress and Trade Exhibition 2020, initially planned to be held from 27th – 29th March 2020 at Kuching, being postponed to 2021. It was expected to be a big event as it was planned to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the formation of MDA Eastern Zone.

MDA has also been alerted on the current trend of DIRECT TO CONSUMERS or DO – IT – YOURSELF Dental Treatment, notably self aligners that could be ordered online by the general public. MDA urges all members to take note of the cautionary advice issued by MDA on this matter and to advise their patients and general public accordingly. For the purposes of educating the general public, MDA President together with Dr Kathiravan Perumal, President of Malaysian Orthodontic Practitioners Association went for a recorded session at BFM station on the 23rd January 2020, to discuss on issues related to Fake Braces and Direct – to – Consumer Self Aligners.

In the first quarter of year 2020 MDA participated in a few meetings locally and abroad and I would like to share some of these activities here:

1. Cambodian Dental Association Meeting and Exhibition (CDAMEX 2020) on 10th – 11th January 2020 at Sokha Phnom Penh Hotel & Residence.

2. 40th Myanmar Dental Conference 2020, 7th -9th February 2020 at Yangon, Myanmar. MDA was also honoured to sponsor a FDI speaker from Malaysia, Associate Professor Dr Firdaus Hariri, to speak at this event. We also witnessed the handing of chain of Presidency from Prof Dr Thein Kyu to Dr Myint Htain. The initial plan to jointly hold the 1st MDA – Myanmar Dental Association outreach program for oral cancer screening in Yangon was called off due to the concern of COVID-19 outbreak worldwide.

3. MAHSA Board of Studies to discuss on the new programme (Diploma in Dental Surgery Assistance) was held on the 10th February 2020 and was attended by Dr Mas Suryalis, Honarary Publication Secretary of MDA.

4. Invitation to President of MDA by the Faculty of Dentistry Lincoln University College as Guest of Honour and Keynote Speaker at 3rd Lincoln University College Dental Research Colloquium, 12th February 2020.

5. 3rd MDA Council meeting on 23rd February 2020 at Wisma MDA.

6. 12th MDA – USM Talk 2020 at the campus of the School of Dental Science, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 28th February 2020. The President of MDA was present as a speaker at this annual event and promoted the association to the students and dental practitioners. This event has also attracted dental practitioners from neighbouring states such as Trengganu.

7. Pre – National Launching of World Oral Health Day 2020 activities. Prior to the announcement to call off the national launching of World Oral Health Day 2020 in Malaysia, MDA together with Oral Health Program, Ministry of Health Malaysia, had a few activities to promote World Oral Health Day to the general public. The theme of this year’s celebration is “Unite for Mouth Health”.

Before I end my message, I would like to take this opportunity to remind all our members to continue to update ourselves through verified sources and advisories released pertaining to the escalating concern of COVID-19 outbreak in our country. We understand on the dire need to maintain reasonable supply of surgical facemask in the country not only for the medical counterparts but also for the dental fraternity. I urge the whole dental fraternity to play our role well when the need arises to help the nation to curb this outbreak. I strongly believe that we can overcome this ordeal if we all stay together united. We need to play our part to educate our patients too. We do not know what further restrictions will be imposed on us, be directly or indirectly, but we need to comply with a sense of responsibility for the goodness of all. I understand that there are still many issues impacting the dental fraternity, such as those directly affecting the private sector. MDA will take the necessary actions to engage the new government administration for this matter.

Yours in MDA,
Kei Joe LEONG