Asia Health

Indonesia’s government is pushing forward with ambitious plans to reform the country’s health network, aiming to have a system of universal social health insurance coverage in place by 2014, though the project faces a number of challenges, not least of which are its sheer scale and cost.

With the South-east Asian medical tourism market rapidly expanding, Malaysia is working to capture a larger share, with industry's designation as a national key economic area (NKEA) central to this effort. The government hopes these measures will help boost health tourist arrivals from the 2010 total of 400,000, which generated revenues of $101.65m.

Malaysia plans to adopt an innovative approach to tackling the spread of dengue fever that could save hundreds of lives and cut massive losses to the economy caused by the mosquito-borne virus. However, some fear the proposed cure may be more harmful than the illness itself.

Thailand’s government and the country’s medical community are debating the proposed new legislation to provide comprehensive coverage to patients against medical malpractice. The state has said that the law would strengthen patients’ rights and reduce the time and money spent in litigation, while health professionals claim it would add to medical expenses and the workload of practitioners.