Malaysia’s National Lung Health Initiative sets out regional model for Asean

 National Cancer Society Malaysia managing director Dr M Murallitharan, however, says regional adoption does not mean every country must build the same system from scratch.

The National Lung Health Initiative’s best-known programme is LungShield, a screening scheme that combines an AI-assisted chest X-ray with micro-insurance to cover follow-up tests. (Envato Elements pic)

KUALA LUMPUR:

The National Lung Health Initiative (NLHI) was launched in February 2025 as a targeted effort to tackle late-stage lung cancer diagnoses in Malaysia, but has since grown into something much bigger.

According to Dr Nor Aryana Hassan, director of the health ministry’s disease control division, addressing lung cancer, one of the most common cancers among Malaysian men, was the starting point for what has become one of the country’s most ambitious health reforms.

“When we started discussions, we found that the lung health initiative was not merely about lung cancer. It’s actually beyond that.”

Rather than running separate programmes for individual pulmonary conditions, the ministry began consolidating them into a single framework centered on overall lung health.

Integrating Malaysia’s lung-health efforts

Dr M Murallitharan, managing director of the National Cancer Society Malaysia (NCSM), a collaborator in the initiative, said the goal was to bring Malaysia’s fragmented approach to lung health under one roof.

“We’re using NLHI as one strategy to unite our different health systems, as well as entities outside the health system, to work together in improving our health as a whole, using the lung as a focal point.”

NLHI now brings together lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma and tuberculosis under a single national framework, built around the idea that these diseases, while clinically distinct, share overlapping risk factors such as smoking, occupational exposure and air pollution.

The overlapping risk factors highlight the need for a broader approach to prevention.

“When we talk more about primary prevention, it’s actually beyond the health ministry’s role alone,” Aryana said.

Rather than creating parallel, disconnected programmes, the health ministry gathered strategic plans from partner agencies and folded them into the lung-health framework.

Within Malaysia, the framework spans prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment and long-term care, delivered through public and private clinics, high-risk workplaces and community outreach.

Its best-known initiative is LungShield, a screening scheme that combines an AI-assisted chest X-ray with micro-insurance to cover follow-up tests.

Addressing barriers

Beyond physical access, there are also internal mindset barriers to screening, said Murallitharan.

“We believe in our own health to a point that we don’t think that any kind of assessment is necessary. That is still the greatest barrier, the self kind of appraisal.”

But even among those willing to be screened, the costs and accessibility of follow-up diagnostic tests can prevent them from going further.

LungShield, developed by NCSM and insurer MCIS Life, is designed to bridge that gap.

“If the X-ray picks up something, the insurance pays for everything up to molecular testing and staging,” Murallitharan said.

Participants pay RM179 under a promotional rate, or RM479 at the standard corporate rate, and NCSM uses the difference to cross-subsidise screening in rural and lower-income communities.

Replicability of NLHI across Asean

Malaysia is now looking to extend elements of the NLHI across the region, with the proposal raised at a side event at the 17th Asean Health Ministers’ Meeting in Kuala Lumpur and formally included in the newly endorsed Asean Strategic Health Agenda 2026-2030.

Aryana said the next step would be to develop a strategic plan outlining how each member state can build on its existing lung-health programmes, followed by the development of an Asean guideline, based on information gathered from each country’s activities and systems.

Murallitharan, however, said regional adoption did not necessarily mean that every country had to build the same system from scratch. Instead, elements of the Malaysian model could be adapted to local healthcare systems and markets, he said.

LungShield, for example, could be introduced through insurers that already operate across several Asean countries, he added.

He said Malaysia negotiated pricing with the technology provider on behalf of the region, rather than solely for the Malaysian market.

He added that other countries could use Malaysia’s negotiated rate, describing this as an example of the region’s “neighbourly spirit”. - FMT