Dengue Watch

1.Construction Sites Worst Culprits In Breeding Aedes Mosquitoes

PUTRAJAYA, Jan 11 (Bernama) -- Construction sites are the most common breeding ground for aedes mosquitoes that carry the potentially deadly dengue virus.

Health Ministry Disease Control Division Director Dr Ramlee Rahmat said 15.4 per cent of construction sites inspected nationwide last year were found breeding aedes.

It was worse in Selangor, where 75.1 per cent of all premises found breeding aedes were construction sites, followed by offices (16.6 per cent), factories (15.5 per cent) and vacant land (8.3 per cent), he told a press conference, here Tuesday.

Construction sites were also found to be the main dengue culprits in Kuala Lumpur Federal Territory with 33.2 per cent, followed by factories (13.7 per cent) and schools (6.8 per cent).

However, the most common aedes breeding ground in Pahang was vacant land at 48.1 per cent and recreational parks (9.1 per cent) while in Penang 17.6 per cent of all premises found breeding aedes were vacant land, followed by recreational parks (9.5 per cent).

Dr Ramlee said in the week from Dec 26 last year, there were 1,077 dengue cases reported in the country compared to 969 cases in the previous week.

Selangor recorded the highest increase of cases to 469 from 365, Kuala Lumpur from 211 to 249 and Penang from 59 to 62, but Pahang registered a decline from 61 to 31, he said.

On the whole, the number of cases last year rose 2,690 to 33,203 from 30,513 a year before, he said.

Meanwhile in SHAH ALAM, Mayor Ramli Mahmud said Shah Alam City Council (MBSA) issued 13 compound fines to premises found breeding aedes in an operation last week.

In the operation, 1,127 premises including residential compounds, factories, schools, shrines and recreational parks were inspected, he said.

He said the MBSA was providing free fogging service to Shah Alam residents and those requiring the service should contact the MBSA's Health Department at 03-55105133 ext. 273 or 274.

-- BERNAMA

2.City Hall To Launch Anti-Dengue Campaign

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 11 (Bernama) -- An anti-dengue campaign will be launched in Cheras on Saturday, Federal Territories Minister Tan Sri Mohd Isa Samad said Tuesday.

He said ongoing efforts to stamp out the menace had to be beefed up as City Hall (DBKL) studies showed breeding trends of the mosquitoes kept changing.

"Two years ago the peak was in July but now it is at the year-end," he told a press conference here.

He said of the 207 cases reported in the city from Jan 1 to 8, 58 were confirmed as dengue fever.

Of the total, 19 were reported in Setapak, 15 in Kepong, 12 in Cheras, eight in the city centre, three in Jalan Klang Lama and one in Damansara.

Last year, 1,542 confirmed dengue cases were reported in the city.

Mohd Isa said abandoned building projects would be among the priority areas for the anti-dengue campaign.

"DBKL must take action to clean up the areas concerned and get the developers to pay later, if they could be traced," he added.

-- BERNAMA

3.Ministry says dengue figures will be made public
Beh Lih Yi
Jan 11, 05 6:44pm

The Health Ministry has assured that all relevant information regarding the dengue situation in the country would be made public as and when they are available.

"We can make them public. I will check with my ministry officials. To me it is public knowledge, there is nothing to hide," its parliamentary secretary Lee Kah Choon told malaysiakini when contacted this afternoon.

He said his ministry will consider publishing the latest dengue-related information such as the reported cases on the ministry's official website.


The Health Ministry, he said, will also conduct an awareness campaign and coordinate with the housing and local government ministry to carry out fogging at dengue affected area.

Lee's assurance of the ministry's transparency in handling dengue cases came after the country has been put on alert of a possible dengue outbreak.

Last Friday, Health Minister Dr Chua Soi Lek warned of a possible dengue outbreak in the next month or two.

According to him, sharp increase of cases were recorded in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Penang and Pahang where about 1,000 cases were reported in a week.

Despite the alert, the public have not been able to gain access to either the ministry's website or media reports to obtain a full picture of the dengue situation in the country.

So far, the ministry has only released the number of suspected dengue cases in the four states as at Jan 1 during a press conference in Putrajaya today.

Outbreak or epidemic

The ministry's disease control division director Dr Ramlee Rahmat told malaysiakini that his division is in the midst of compiling the latest statistics from the health department of all the states.

He described the current dengue situation as "serious" but declined to confirm its status - whether it is an outbreak or an epidemic.

"An outbreak goes with the trend (of reported cases), not by number of cases while an outbreak or epidemic is when there is more than one case occurring in one locality within a period of a week," he explained.

"For disease control and prevention purpose however, we tell our hospital that when there is more than one case reported in the same area, there is a dengue outbreak.

"However, the use of the term "outbreak" could give other meanings to the public," Ramlee noted.

According to him, a total of 58 deaths due to dengue haemorrhagic fever and 33,203 of cases were reported last year, as opposed to 72 deaths and 30,513 cases reported in 2003.

A total of 969 suspected dengue cases were reported nationwide in a week between Dec 19-25 last year and another 1,077 new suspected cases were reported from Dec 26 to Jan 1 this year.

Selangor is the worst hit with 469 new cases recorded in the last week of 2004, a jump from 365 cases reported a week before. This was followed by Federal Territory with 249 cases which saw an increase of 104 cases in a week.

Ramlee explained that the figures were new cases after the patient developed dengue symptoms such as painful joints, fever and a rash. Dengue symptoms usually begin within a week of a bite from a carrier mosquito.

The director urged the public to step up measures to curb the breeding of the killer aedes mosquito and obtain advice from nearby clinics should they develop symptoms..

"If there are no drastic measures to reduce the number of mosquito breeding, we foresee the dengue cases will keep increasing in a short term because the carrier mosquito is there and we are all exposed to it," he warned.

Pro-active actions

Meanwhile, Puchong MP Lau Yen Peng urged the ministry and the local authority to identify potential dengue-affected areas immediately and take preventive measures.


"Pro-active actions such as fogging and clearing clogged drains must be carried out immediately. The latest dengue figures must be updated," Lau said when contacted.

He also demanded the Health Ministry to follow the World Health Organisation benchmark in classifying the seriousness of the dengue situation and called for transparency to be upheld.

Lau, a former Subang Jaya municipal councillor, claimed that he had been denied information pertaining to the dengue outbreak when he was a councillor, saying he was told that revealing the figures will affect the tourism industry.

----Malaysiakini.com

4.What dengue alert, when Health Ministry is not on alert?

Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang

(Parliament, Monday): The Health Minister, Datuk Chua Soi Lek should take the Health Ministry into the information age by breaking away from the past secrecy syndrome and post the latest weekly updates of dengue cases and deaths on the Health Ministry website for public information to demonstrate real government seriousness in the war against dengue.

Following Chua's Friday warning of an impending dengue fever outbreak, the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, who is also Chairman of the Cabinet Committee on national health and safety, yesterday called on the authorities and the public to take a holistic approach to stop the spread of dengue fever "which is getting more serious" as the number of cases had jumped to 1,000 a week.

The government itself must set the example of a "holistic approach", which it has signally itself failed to do or the dengue threat would not have reached the serious level of 1,000 cases a week.

During the previous dengue epidemic, the then Health Minister, Datuk Chua Jui Meng sought to rebut DAP allegations of the seriousness of the outbreak and told Parliament on 11th March 2003 that "Di Malaysia, sejak tahun 1997 sehingga 2002 purata kes dengi (demam denggi dan deman denggi berdarah) setahun adalah 8,364 kes dan kematian sebanyak 54 kes".

This works to an average of 160 dengue cases per week in the six years from 1997 - 2002.

It does not reflect positively on the efficiency, capability and vigilance of the Health Ministry that it has not sounded the dengue alarm and alert earlier, although in the past three months, the number of dengue cases have shot up to the present 1,000 cases a week, which is six times the weekly average for the six years from 1997-2002.

In this connection, I fully agree with non-government organizations that the Health Ministry had been caught napping by the dengue outbreak, and should have issued the dengue alert earlier and Chua's outburst against the NGOs for this reprimand is most unwarranted.

The Health Ministry is not solely at fault, for the Local Government and Housing Ministry, with overall responsibility for the local government authorities, and the various State Governments must also bear equal responsibility for the worsening of the dengue outbreak, failing not only to keep the environment aedes mosquites-free, but in conveying the dengue alert to the public at the first available opportunity.

In actual fact, the Health Ministry itself has yet to demonstrate its full seriousness about the Health Minister's dengue warning. I have been visiting the Health Ministry website for the past three days since Chua's dengue warning, but there has been nothing on it about the dengue alert raising the question as to how the country could be on dengue alert when the Health Ministry itself is not yet on dengue alert!

The first step to demonstrate the Health Ministry's seriousness about the dengue alert is for the Health Ministry to stop being a "cobwebsite" and feature a special item on its website on the dengue menace, giving not only all the relevant information about the preventive measures that should be taken by the public, but even more important, providing the latest update information on a weekly basis of the number of dengue cases and death, state-by-state and even hotspot-by-hotspot.

For a start, Chua should make public the statistics of the dengue cases and deaths for last year and the previous two years, on a state-by-state and month-by-month basis, which will be the first signal that the Health Ministry has begun to enter the information age and is serious in wanting to get public support and involvement in the fight against preventable diseases.

(10/1/2005)

• Now is there really a danger of an outbreak of dengue in KL, Selangor and the other states or is all those involved using Dengue as a news-opportunity?


• Why are those involved Adopting A Lackadaisical Attitude, this is certainly not part of Malaysian gomen MINIsters' and authorities' culture?


• What is meant by an "outbreak". Is this true :: "For disease control and prevention purpose however, we tell our hospital that when there is more than one case reported in the same area, there is a dengue outbreak"? OR is this ['aut-"brAk] true?


• Are they just making mincemeat of the working together, non-lackadaisical and courteous attitude of Malaysian Culture?


• The PM certainly won't be having another honeymoon in the near future or ever again.