Who should be responsible for Malaysians' exposure to the diseases brought in by the migrant workers?

Should the migrant workers be blamed for this or Fomema, the Singaporean-owned private entity tasked with (according to its website ) preventing 'identified communicable diseases from entering the country through our stringent monitoring and supervision of medical examinations on foreign workers'?

The incidence of the deadly tuberculosis disease has increased from 60.3 cases per 100,000 people in 2004 to 61.2 cases per 100,000 people last year. The number of TB cases, meanwhile, increased from 15,429 in 2004 to 15,991 in 2005, the Health Ministry said in a statement recently.

According to an evaluation conducted among 14,730 TB patients last year, 1,468, or 9.2%, were HIV-positive, according to the ministry further.

There are 1.8 million migrant workers who are living within our midst and there is a potential that tuberculosis may be spread through the air we breathe and other modes of transmission.

Fomema should be fully responsible and accountable for the damages done to both migrant workers and the Malaysia society if it procedures for checking the health status of migrant worker are found to be faulty.

Fomema was the company (then Malaysian-owned) given the concession by the government in 1997 to conduct a systematic and standardised medical examination of foreign workers in Malaysia.

There are currently 3,370 doctors, 307 labs and 772 X-ray clinics registered with Fomema to conduct the medical check up for the documented migrant workers.

Fomema is currently registers an average of 50,000 to 80,000 workers per month. Seventy percent are Indonesians, 10.20% Nepalese, 6.19% Indians, 3.6% Bangladeshis and the remainder from Burma and Vietnam.

It is worrying that deadly communicable diseases are making a resurgence in the country. Fomema is there to ensure that this should not have happened.