Families who have lost their loved ones in the current dengue outbreak can sue the government for negligence, the DAP said today.

"The families of the over 40 dengue fatalities in the last six months are entitled to sue both the Health Ministry and the Housing and Local Government Ministry (over their failure) to launch a nation-wide dengue alert despite the World Health Organisation warning last July," DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang ( photo ) said in a statement.

The opposition party is offering legal aid to bereaved families who intend to take legal action against the government.

There were at least 54 deaths by the end of last year, with more than 40 occurring in the second half of the year. However, the full statistics of the total number of dengue cases and fatalities have yet to be released.

On New Year's Day alone, two children died of the disease, a six-year-old boy from Kuantan and a two-year-old child from Ipoh.

'Doubly negligent'

"Today's Berita Harian carried the heart-rending report of Mohd Wazir Ariffin, 43, from ... Kuala Lumpur, who lost his two daughters ... within two days last Christmas because of dengue," Lim noted.

Health Minister Chua Jui Meng ( far left ) and Housing and Local Government Minister Ong Ka Ting ( left ) have been made jointly responsible by the cabinet for the dengue outbreak.

Lim slammed both ministries for being "doubly negligent" by "defeating the very purpose of making the dengue disease notifiable since 1973".

"When a disease is made 'notifiable' under the law, every case has to be reported to the health authorities by all hospitals, physicians, laboratories, and other persons knowing of or suspecting a case.

"(This) means that the government would have the latest daily update of the total number of dengue cases and deaths in each state," he explained, adding that this then establishes "an effective surveillance to ensure a timely public health campaign to check the spread of the deadly disease".

Deaf ears

Lim said "notifiable diseases" incidence in other countries like Australia, the UK, Canada and the United States, are updated frequently on websites.

He compared them with the "cobwebsites" of the Malaysian government which "conceal rather than reveal" and treat public health information as "closely-guarded secrets under the Official Secrets Act."

Lim said in the past one month he had issued 10 media statements calling on the authorities to make public the statistics on the number of dengue cases and fatalities with breakdowns according to state and month, "but they all fell on deaf ears".

He called last year as possibly the worst in terms of dengue deaths in the nation's history worse than 1998 which saw 27,379 cases and 58 deaths.