Kuala lumpur: Health security must no longer be treated purely as a medical or public-health issue, but as a strategic national capability essential to defending the country's sovereignty under prolonged pressure, said Armed Forces Health Services director-general Lt Gen Datuk Dr Zulkeffeli Mat Jusoh. Dr. Zulkeffeli stressed that a nation's defence relies directly on the biological resilience of its citizens.
According to BERNAMA News Agency, Dr. Zulkeffeli emphasized that a nation incapable of protecting the biological functioning of its people cannot safeguard its economy, maintain military readiness, preserve public confidence, or defend its sovereignty under sustained pressure. He delivered these remarks in his keynote address at the 39th Scientific Meeting of the Malaysian Society of Pharmacology and Physiology (MSPP) and the 1st Advances in Research and Clinical Medicine of Today (ARMy) Symposium.
He highlighted that recent global crises have shown how biological threats outpace administrative institutions and policy frameworks, highlighting the critical need to bridge the gap between scientific laboratories and operational environments. He warned that scientific achievements lose their strategic value if they cannot function under severe operational stress, such as during extreme heat, high altitude, resource limitations, or disrupted supply chains.
Dr. Zulkeffeli noted that a therapy effective only under ideal conditions is a scientific achievement, whereas a therapy that works under operational stress is a resilience capability. He urged researchers and defence planners to focus on translation velocity, the speed at which basic discovery is converted into field-ready countermeasures.
He identified four main structural frictions hindering national health response: speed asymmetry, operational physiology gaps, data-to-decision delays, and institutional seams. To address these, he advocated for a mission-driven translational health security network that unites academia, healthcare providers, defence logistics, and industry to continuously shorten the 'five clocks of resilience': the time to detect, understand, counter, deploy, and recover.
The two-day joint conference, organised by Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia (UPNM) through its Faculty of Medicine and Defence Health (FPKP) alongside MSPP, was launched by UPNM deputy vice-chancellor (Academic and International Affairs) Prof Norhana Abdul Halim. The event, themed "Bridging Life's Mechanics and Therapeutics for Health Security and Resilience," brings together defence, medical, and scientific experts to address key areas such as biosecurity, Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRNe) medical readiness, artificial intelligence-driven healthcare, and human health in extreme environments.
Key presentations scheduled at the conference include discussions on military flight physiology in hypobaric and High-G conditions by Col Dr. Zulkefley Mohammad of the RMAF Institute of Aviation Medicine, and CBRNe emergency response frameworks by Dr. Hazlina Mohamad Noh of Selayang Hospital.