MAera (Malaysian Alliance for Embedding Rapid Reviews in Health Systems Decision Making) yesterday had a video-call with Dr. Robert Marten from The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (AHPSR), World Health Organization, on MAera’s latest evidence synthesis that aims to document Malaysia’s Health Systems Response to COVID-19, in response to the call by our Deputy Director-General of Health (Research & Technical Support), Dr Hishamshah bin Mohd. Ibrahim.

Led by the principal rapid evidence synthesis reference person, Dr. Shakirah Md Sharif, the team shared with Dr. Marten the progress and their approach of a live work-in-progress dashboard, hosted on the MAera-NIH website (http://maera.nih.gov.my/index.php/covid-19-health-systems-response). Dr. Marten offered assistance and had earlier shared several evidence synthesis with the MAera team.

Dr. Shakirah also updated Dr. Marten on other evidence synthesis projects that are currently ongoing. Several other projects are also in the pipeline in the near future for various stakeholders.

MAera currently receives funding and support from WHO for its activities to embed evidence synthesis into health systems decision making and the WHO remains committed in providing support to the MAera platform in Malaysia.