MELAKA: The parties involved in providing ozone therapy need to present strong scientific evidence to the Ministry of Health if they wished to have it recognised, said Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S Subramaniam.
He said the ministry was currently of the opinion that ozone therapy was not a recognised form of treatment and patients could even risk losing their lives in the process.
“If they bring scientific evidence to us and it is accepted by the technical committee and ministry experts, in addition to complying with set scientific procedures, we can accept it.
“If the mainstream medical community accepts this as a form of treatment that has scientific evidence of the science and (the equipment used) are registered with regulatory agencies, it can be done, but until now there has been no evidence and (the equipment) are not registered,” he said during a press conference here, yesterday.
Earlier, Dr Subramaniam inaugurated the 8th National-level Health Clinic Advisory Panel Convention in Bandar Hilir, here.
On Wednesday, Dr Subramaniam said the ministry had banned ozone therapy and directed all business premises including clinics and beauty salons that offered the service to cease doing so with immediate effect.
He said an assessment done by the Malaysian Health Technology Assessment Section (MaHTAS) found no scientific evidence to support any therapeutic benefit of using ozone therapy for any patient.
Elaborating, Dr Subramaniam said the ministry would closely monitor the issue by inspecting machines and medicine used in the said therapy.
“The machines used must be registered under the Medical Devices Act and substances such as blood thinners (heparin) can only be administered by medical practitioners. I hope that the parties involved do not continue offering this treatment illegally,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said the ministry had planned to implement more programmes in preventing non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.
“With these new programmes, we’’re going to do a lot of screening to detect the illnesses at the early stage, and then provide early treatment as well as advise them on how to adopt a healthy lifestyle.
“We do not want (their health) to have deteriorated badly before seeking treatment,” he said.— Bernama