I feel totally outraged at the conspiracy of silence involving the government headed by the Health Minister, Datuk Liow Tiong Lai and even the media to play down the worst dengue epidemic in the country’s history which has to date claimed 100 lives and recorded over 45,000 dengue cases.
It came as a shock to me, as it must be to all Malaysians, that 100 lives have been lost to dengue in the first 50 weeks of this year.
No mainstream newspaper headlined or even reported this shocking news or that the country is facing the worst dengue epidemic in history, which has been confirmed by the latest dengue statistics by the Director, Disease Control Division, Ministry of Health, Datuk Dr. Hassan Abdul Rahman yesterday that dengue fever claimed two more victims last week, bringing the number of fatal cases in the country to 100.
Dr. Hassan did not give the latest total number of dengue cases in the country as on December 13, 2008 when they have also established a dubious new record of exceeding 45,000 cases – which is another shocker that the total number of dengue cases have crossed the 40,000 mark even before the full year is over.
Liow should explain why there is a conspiracy of silence to play down the worst dengue epidemic in the country when he should be spearheading a nation-wide anti-dengue public campaign to save lives by reducing avoidable deaths as well as mitigate considerable unnecessary sufferings?
Liow should end this conspiracy of silence by spearheading a nation-wide anti-dengue campaign as well as making public all the available facts and figures about the worst dengue epidemic confronting the country, with week-by-week data of dengue cases and fatalities, not only nationally but also on a state-by-state basis.
It has been reported that Malaysia has the first fatal case of Chikungunya, which was completely unheard of recently.
Again, no proper ministerial leadership had been provided by Liow to educate the Malaysian public about this emerging disease in the country.
It will be sad and tragic if the Health Minister of the country is only interested about Sime Darby Bhd’s takeover of the National Heart Institute but not concerned about maintaining high standards of public health in the country.
Mugabe: “There is no cholera in Zimbabwe”
Liow TL: “There is no dengue in Malaysia”
After all, it took a pair of shoes zooming past his head to make Bush realise that there are shoes of mass destruction in Iraq.
Does MCA or the Minister of Health care a damn about how many people died? All these people care for is how to stay in power and scrape more money out of the people! They have totally forgotten their basic duty as politicians, community leaders and ministers!
Out of the 45,000 infected, only 100 died. For BN’s standard, that’s very impressive.
Enforcement , new strategies , brainstorming and new processes of why , what , who , how and when has never been a feature in the structure of all govt depts. This 45k seems lower than their targeted number — so much for peoples lives.
Corruption from procurement of equipment , drugs bought from generic sources are commanded as more expensive by the middle man — the sufferers are the ones still thinking the authorities are coming to save them. When the Director of disease Control is more interested about other priorities as seen by the alternative medias
like http://sjsandteam.wordpress.com/ . Medical help has become a money spinner for the govt middle man because staying inefficient keeps the problem for their products for sale.
Dear Sir,
The recent statistics by the government of dengue cases totalling 45,000 cases and 100 death this year is nothing to be shocked about. Recently, I went to the famous Taman Aman in Petaling Jaya as I wanted to take my 18 month old daughter for a walk and breathe some fresh air.
To my shock, both of us were bitten badly by mosquitoes. Not just one or two bites, but countless. My poor baby was screaming her head off in pain. All she wanted to do was to have some fresh air and play the swing.
I walked around and noticed within several feet from the swings, there were a few old abandoned tyres. Judging from the mud on it, the tyres was most likely there for months. It was filled with rain water and hundreds of mosquito larvae were swimming in it. I was shocked.
What really shocked me was the fact that this park is maintained by the government. It is for public use. Yet the public cannot even use the park safely. What is even more ironic is the fact that the same people, namely MBPJ, who maintain the park, also go around from house to house summoning people if they have larvae mosquitoes in their houses.
I now don’t let my daughter go to the park or even outside my house to play. What a life we have in Malaysia, where even mere children cannot go out because we have an irresponsible government who is in denial that there is a big dengue problem in Malaysia.
I have e-mailed you 2 pictures of the tyres in the park for you to publish if you so see it fit. Zoom in to see the larvae swimming.
And the government wants to buy new Perdana cars for their officials? Before you buy new cars, give the public some safe parks!
Yes that’s right dawsheng,only 0.22% death resulting from 45,000 infected.Yet YB make so much noise,for what ah? In fact he should give Liow a big pat on the shoulder for doing such a marvellous job!
Readers,
Please note that every hospital in the northern region of Malaysia has a ward dedicated for dengue cases. Every district has dengue victims. Yet the issue is being kept hash hash.
The dengue mosquitoes can travel for a radius of 1.5 kms, but the district health depts don’t bother to fumigate the tamans.
The residential tamans in Kedah are separated according to races; Malays on side and the rest another side, I swear to God when the government health dept came to fumigate the mosquitoes, they only did the Malay side. But those stupid idiots don’t know the mosquitoes can travel.
Liow and that useless DG are playing bloody politics with people’s lives. Opening up tradional medicine units, sendings kids to of all places Bangalore and making noises about IJN are all about building his image in the MCA. We are having an epidemic of Chikungunya and dengue….with medical doctors graduating from Russia and Indonesia who come back with poor basic knowledge and ethics…..and to top it all we have leaking hospitals and in Kota Kinabalu no hospital at all, just waiting to collapse anytime just like in Bukit Antarabangsa…..Healthcare in Malaysia is a dead duck in the water….if the PR on someone doesnt take over this government……this time next year 200 people would have died with dengue without counting Chikungunya and Bird flu waiting to drop by……..we need a public health guy as DG quick before we end a Zimbabwe….
true abt the health ministry and the government. but most of all, i think the majlis perbandaran should play a stronger role in this. in the taman where i stay, the big drains are clogged and since we live in a corner lot, we can even enjoy the evening breeze, or have dinner in our garden, for fear of mosquitos. my husband and i have tried several things, but all no use. finally we went to the majlis perbandaran and asked them if they can come clean the clogged drains, and they said…”oh..its no more our job, its another dept in another place in town”. everytime we go to this other dept, its either close or the relevant person is not around.
YB, could you please address this in the parliament? i’m sure many residents face the same problem…
nowadays dengue fever are common, back in few decades ago govt already have those campaign of get rid of dengue fever case, but why until today the situation getting worse? Well, can’t blame on govt also, people nowadays never jaga kebersihan, just look, every time there is the no litter sign, there will be rubbish at the bottom.
Well, I’m a victim of dengue fever myself 2 years ago, I got to say its very tiring and suffer, and painful.
There’s not much money is spraying mosquitoes contract. People dying is common, everyday people are dying, die lah. Kalau sudah takdir, apa mau bikin!Matilah!
Lagi sikit hari BN pun matilah!
This is shameful especially when lives are lost.
Disease breed due to over crowding and poor maintenence of over-built infrastructures, and at the same time not paying enough attention to possible ill effects?
k1980 Says:
Yesterday at 12: 34.11
Mugabe: “There is no cholera in Zimbabwe”
Liow TL: “There is no dengue in Malaysia”
Liow pian cho ‘mugabe’ liow. (Translation: Liow has turned into ‘mugabe’ already.)
100 dead 45000 cases ,”S” power of “3” = sap sap sui to gomen, in bolehland.
AFP reports:
‘Zimbabwe is mine’ says Mugabe
Mahathir may soon join in the chorus…but Liow?
UMNO and Najib are staging and playing the so-called ‘sandiwara’ only in the case of the IJN! The supposed take-over of IJN by Sime Darby is not SHELVED but put on hold temporarily until and after the upcoming Kuala Terengganu parliamentary by-election is over on 17 January, 2009. The reason is very simple : the BN will by all means wants to garner as many votes as possible from the KT electorate to win the crucial and important seat because the election result will in one way or another reflects on designate PM-to-be Najib’s leadership. At this point in time, the BN and especially UMNO can ill afford disgruntles and protests from the rakyat on the privatization of IJN which will be a big blow to those poor who needs reasonably affordable heart treatment. A defeat in KT which is overwhelmingly Malay-majority will have dire consequences for UMNO in the long run.
One has the eerie feeling that the BN government is adamant of privatizing IJN after 17 January, 2009 despite the outcry and objections from the rakyat. It has already made up its mind on IJN come what may. Time and events will tell! We will wait and see as to the hidden agenda of the government!
Oops ,sorry.
My comments should be on the topic :
IJN – No To Privatization. Wrong channel!
Well, if we compare with Cambodia or Laos, we are much much much better already…This is what the BN government used to do, always compare ourselves with those inferior than us and continuously claimed that Malaysia Boleh!
http://gnustiy.blogspot.com/2008/12/my-friend-ask-me-whythis-is-why.html
Facts :
-As population increases & density of an area increases too, we gonna get more figures compared to this.
-As above with additional action from the health department in research & monitoring & control, figures might maintain. If not add another 30% on the uprising.
-The government can afford Eurocopter, says, 5000 litres of Malathion & 5000 litres of Icon plus 5 tons of Abate will do the job. (Nationwide scale). Cost = Less than RM 10 Million
-Does average Malaysians really knows how to keep away or to help preventing mosquito breeding methods. Answer : Very low knowledge. Just go around, you will bound to find a perfect breeding spot in less than 100 metres away from you , NOW !
-Facts : Dengue Mosquito don’t travel far, a range of 1 KM in radius could be best describe, therefore, those folks who got dengue, a very high possibility of major breeding ground located near their homes or place of residence.
-Facts : Even developed countries, the war on dengue is still a major problem. The use of insecticide is not the solution, but rather control for a certain period of time. Too much,the national cancer society will record a very high figure.
-Facts : The current Anti Dengue Campaign = Not working at all !
-Facts : Dengue & Malaria epidemic is no joking matter, its how serious our government is looking into. Lets do some calculation, take the figure 45,000 and divide it over this country estimated land area (populated area), i guess you will come up a serious figure & you & me are inclusive in this statistic.
Did our Health Ministry look into such facts below :
-Which area are the highest hit.
-What are the major income group of those victims.
-Living conditions of affected areas.
-Proper water supply in those affected areas ?
-Proper disposal municipal in those areas ?
-Kinds of landscaping of those affected areas.
-Are those areas classified as residential or commercial or industrial ?
-Irrigation system in those area sufficient ?
-Major earth moving in those affected areas ? Says for housing projects or others.
-Did the health ministry looks into the topography of those affected areas ?
I can come up with another 100 or so questions, but how much does our government have answered so far ?
By denying that the figures is not alarming is a major mistake, that figure could be 3 times more, by finger pointing to the health ministry is not the solution. Every department is responsible for this, from finance to development has a connection to this scary figure.
Not sure if it’s been covered-up by now but suggest someone go take a look into that VAST and deadly mosquito-breeding reservoir created right smack in the centre of Seremban (in the name of commercial greed) out of the utterly pointless destruction of an old and well-respected, and also exceptionally beautiful, learning institution that once stood there in its place.
Strangely, destruction of high-quality schools that aid good learning to make way for cheap shops sometimes brings forth unimagined and unintended consequences.
Robert Pirsig says in his Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance that he sees universities as churches of reason. That was exactly what that now-destroyed school was! It was a school whose teachers used reason well to teach all its multi-cultural and multi-religious pupils the sound ground rules for high-quality learning, good cooperation balanced with good-natured competition but most importantly, it taught effective integration.
Now was it a God-forsaken act to have sacrificed that holy shrine to reason and learning at that altar of commercial profit? Could that be why, instead of that planned shopping complex, Seremban is now saddled with being the unexpected (and proud?) owner of the mother-of-all mosquito-breeding complex?
This Seremban leisure complex for mosquitoes of all species could even be the biggest of its kind in the world so perhaps this is another one of those badges of achievement which maybe that competitive good Dr M may want to add to his proud collection of stuff in Malaysia that is the biggest and best-est in the world.
And call me paranoid if you will, but I really can’t help imagining militaristic hordes of invasive Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquito-hit squads buzzing about busily in that mosquito-industrial complex everyday happily planning and coordinating with meticulous military-like precision their airborne blood-sucking feeding attacks on unsuspecting Serembanites and launching into them their deadly CHIKV and DHF virus biological weapons.
I can even imagine these mosquito-vector squadrons venturing out on longer-range dawn/dusk airborne sorties on Malaysians in KL and elsewhere.
And I am also willing to take a bet that there are enough breeding mosquitoes in that infested mosquito-leisure complex to potentially infect everyone in Seremban, if not the whole of Malaysia soon with deadly diseases unless someone like that Health Minister for instance takes the time to go and do some necessary mosquito-control at that eye-sore of a site!
“Imagine Power To The People” John Lennon.