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our people, our story

Professor Yvonne, her students and team members at her recent
UM inaugural lecture and ASM Fellow’s lecture.
Stars of East Asia, she remains grounded and Malaysia. Although some communities were
humble about her achievements. The following already exposed to development, it was
is a summary of her heartwarming story which found that worm infections still persisted
she delivered with much humour, passion in the indigenous population with an overall
and sincerity. prevalence of 73.2%. These results were then
presented to the Director of the Department of
DEBUNKING THE MYTH ABOUT GUT Orang Asli Development (JAKOA) in 2010 and
WORMS BY UNLOCKING THE SECRETS following the outcome of the National Action
OF GUT MICROBIOTA Council (MKN) in that same year, deworming
In her recent UM inaugural lecture and ASM programmes were re-initiated, benefitting
Fellow’s lecture, Professor Yvonne took us on approximately 1600 Orang Asli. This was a
a journey of discovery to unlock the secrets of significant action by the government agency
gut worms and microbiota. Gut worms such as large scaled deworming programmes have
as Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura, been discontinued in Malaysia since 1983.
and hookworm have always been associated
with poor health, which is why deworming To empower these communities to take
programmes are conducted worldwide to ownership of their health issues, a health
eradicate these worms from our human gut. education project, aptly named HELP (Health
However, in recent years, there is a growing Educational Learning Package) was developed
interest in using worms as therapeutic agents for and initiated, which involved school teachers,
inflammatory diseases. school children, and villagers. Coupled with
deworming treatments, the programme was
Her journey to unravel the secrets of these effective in decreasing the number of infections
worms started in 2007, when her team as well as the parasite load in infected
conducted a comprehensive study on the status individuals. Based on post-intervention
of worm infections among the indigenous evaluation, knowledge that was imparted to
(Orang Asli) communities residing in Peninsular the school children was carried home to their

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