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.