I would like to give my views to the various comments written by several writers from the various dailies. Commenting o­n the article written by Foong Pek Yee which appeared in The Star o­n April 7, I wish to make the following comments and observations.

It seems that the writer was not aware of what the Health Ministry has been doing and what measure had been adopted by the ministry to combat this disease. The Health Ministry has been pro-active in implementing precautionary measures right from the start of the WHO alert against Sars.

The ministry's efforts have been praised by WHO and also recognised by the Malaysian Medical Association. The ministry has been open and transparent in reporting findings, facts and figures, providing daily briefings to media. It has been working together with the media to inform the public objectively, accurately and responsibly.

Sars is a national security issue affecting the life of every Malaysian and there is no room for other agenda. Obviously the writer has another agenda in mind by choosing to use such negative, and uncalled for, remarks against a minister who has done so much for the health sector in Malaysia.

Furthermore, I do not understand why the writer choose to bring up the issue of the Nipah outbreak. In this context, I have observed that nobody mentions the role of the Agriculture Ministry outbreak.

The Agriculture Ministry is responsible to ensure that all animals and livestock brought into the country are disease-free. It is through animals that were imported from Australia that was the main cause of the Nipah outbreak, which were transmitted from horses to pigs and then to humans. To insinuate that the health minister had not handled the Nipah outbreak crisis well is ridiculous and absurd. All decisions made by minister were discussed collectively in the cabinet.

Malaysians have seen the health minister himself work hardest to solve that crisis. He went directly to the pig farms at great risks to his own safety to understand and solve the cause of the epidemic contrary to some politicians in MCA and the opposition who try to make political mileage out of this issue by issuing negative press statements that cause greater confusion among the general public from the comfort of their offices. These doomsayers do not even dare to venture into the farms for fears what might befall them.

This is happening again with (DAP leader) Lim Kit Siang constantly harping o­n issues of which he is not familiar with. He has harped o­n the better handing of dengue outbreak in Singapore compared to Malaysia. Does he know that Singapore has more dengue cases compared to the Klang Valley?

In the recent dengue outbreak he again took the Health Ministry to task without knowing that in the recent dengue outbreak 92 percent of reported cases were reported in areas under the jurisdiction of the local government authorities and o­nly eight percent were reported in areas under the jurisdiction of the Health Ministry. I hope he is sincere enough to direct his complaints to the Minister of Housing and Local Government.

Coming to the comments by Balan Moses - which appeared in News Straits Times o­n April 8 regarding the health minister urging the media to be responsible is the most appropriate statement besides calling for greater cooperation in reporting Sars 'in a positive sense' - the writer chose to portray the minister's statement negatively and implied that the minister meant that the press should not provide the facts and figures that the public justifiably deserves.

My comprehension of understanding of the word "in a positive sense" might not be the same as the learned writer. To me what the minister meant was report facts and figures and not those obtained from undisclosed sources, which would feed the rumor-mongering mills.

While contending that the Nipah virus episode left the Health Ministry credibility in tatters, I wonder whether there is a conspiracy by the writers to undermine the minister. Why is there no reporting or commenting o­n the hundreds of deaths and injuries to accident victims who travel back to their homes or village during the festive months of Hari Raya and Chinese New Year?

The writers should ask the transport minister what he and the JPJ is doing about it, since the death rate o­n these festive seasons far exceeds the total Sars death in Malaysia. If there is any credibility issue, it should not be the Health Ministry but the writers of these articles for they chose to cast doubts o­n the ability of the ministry to resolve these issues.

To quote from the Singapore's Straits Times that WHO took a swipe at Chua for his handling of the Sars issue, everyone in Malaysia knows that the Straits Times takes great pleasure in swiping and criticising any Malaysian minister.

Finally I hope the Chinese-language newspapers will play their part in helping the Health Ministry and the government to overcome this deadly Sars issue by reporting accurately and objectively, and stop playing linguistic semantics o­n the use of terms such as 'probable' cases versus 'confirmed' cases of Sars. There is no room for any other agenda and I hope they are not used by certain people for their own personal political agenda