I agree with Norzam . I think there is definitely an epidemic, judging by my observation and conversation with others. I had first hand experience with the virus having contracted it last December. Then I got to know that o­ne of my staff has contracted it in February, after visiting a friend in hospital who was in ICU also for dengue. There is enough evidence around us.

It is disgusting that the Health Ministry has not revealed any statistics. But what is worse, they are not disseminating enough useful information about combating and treating the illness.

The usual information about checking your drains, emptying cans, and fogging, are just not useful anymore. It's like saying you need to prevent sand from entering your eyes when you are in a desert. Everyone knows that already.

Everyone also knows that in a tropical environment like ours, with high humidity and rainfall, how much can you realistically prevent water from collecting? The government must move beyond these simplistic counter-measures.

There must be a broad range of counter-measures including improvement in treatment, biological agents, better antibiotics, etc. Since there are no counter-measures like that, I can o­nly assume that the government have again failed miserably.

What has the Ministry of Health done? What findings do we have from the Institute of Medical Research? How much funding has been directed to the study of tropical diseases? How much effort has been expended? How many researchers have been assigned to the task - who's been looking into it and what have they found out so far? How long have they been looking into this

problem, or have they even started looking into it?

If not, why have we wasted billions of ringgit o­n the Twin Towers, Commonwealth Stadium, Sepang F1, Bakun, Perwaja, MSC, etcetera, instead of into useful research such as to find answers to that miserable mosquito?

Now, who directed money into those useless projects?