The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) has lambasted the Health Ministry for ignoring the importance of saving lives after it postponed a meeting with the commission o­n the dengue epidemic.

"No official reason was given for calling off the meeting at the last minute. The ministry called to inform us o­nly o­n Wednesday, the day before the meeting was scheduled to be held", fumed Suhakam commissioner Prof Dr Mohd Hamdan Adnan

Contacted by malaysiakini , Mohd Hamdan claimed that the postponement was because Malaysia is hosting the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit.

"They don't want any bad publicity o­n dengue during the summit. They don't want to divulge any details so that no news about the dengue epidemic would come to the knowledge of the NAM delegates," he said.

The furious commissioner said it is unreasonable for the ministry to postpone the meeting scheduled for Thursday.

No due attention

This goes to show that the ministry is not giving due attention o­n the dengue problem, he alleged.

"Aedes mosquitoes do not know how to differentiate whether you are NAM delegates or not", he added sarcastically.

"People are dying, talks about many people being warded are still going o­n. We just want to find out the exact statistics from them duirng the meeting and get the actual picture o­n this outbreak. This is a matter of respecting the right to live," he stressed.

Ministry's director-general Dr Mohamad Taha Arif had earlier agreed to attend Thursday's meeting.

When contacted, his special assistant Hasah Abdullah merely said Taha postponed the meeting because he is "busy".

"We are all very busy handling health matters for the NAM Summit," she said, adding that she has no idea when the new date for the meeting would be fixed.

Hamdan said he was told by the ministry's official that the meeting probably would be decided o­nly after the NAM Summit.

The 13th NAM Summit is attended by heads of government and their delegations from 114 nations. The summit is scheduled in Kuala Lumpur from Feb 20 to 25.

Figures not available

The commissioner is also annoyed that Suhakam has failed to obtain figures of dengue cases and fatalities from hospitals despite making several attempts to do so.

"We have contacted hospitals and tried to get the figures from them, but they said there is a gag order from the ministry and they can't say anything. This makes us unable to carry out our duty and our responsibility," he said.

"I really hope they pay grave attention to this issue, hold the meeting immediately and save lives," Hamdan urged.

Last Thursday, Suhakam called the ministry to be responsible and committed in handling the dengue epidemic.

The commission added that the cooperation from the ministry including to release related information and figures of cases or deaths is a must.

'Aedes mosquito no-fly zone'

Health Minister Chua Jui Meng earlier said that his ministry had set up a special dengue committee to ensure that NAM delegations and their heads of government would not be endangered by the dengue outbreak during their attendance at the summit.

This was, however questioned by DAP national chairperson Lim Kit Siang as to why the "dengue-free" and "aedes-mosquito no-fly zone" could o­nly be ensured for NAM delegates but not Malaysians.

"Do we have a division of responsibility of the healthcare system in Malaysia where the health minister is o­nly responsible for dengue as far as the NAM Summit and other VIPs and VVIPs are concerned, but not for the welfare of the 23 million ordinary Malaysians?" he asked.

Lim also claimed that o­ne of the major reasons behind the lack of awareness among the public was because the media had been instructed to downplay the issue.

DAP had lodged two reports o­n the dengue epidemic to the human rights commission.

Their first report to the commission contained a compilation of the Health Ministry figures o­n the outbreak, which was carried in Sin Chew Daily .

WHO warning

According to the figures, there were 32,289 confirmed dengue cases last year and a total of 57 deaths nationwide.

However, Lim claimed that this tally did not correspond with those provided by the various state health officials and others.

Dengue is caused by the aedes mosquito and those infected suffer from pain in their joints, fever and rashes.

Last September, the World Health Organisation issued an alert to tropical countries, including Malaysia, to prepare for an increase in the number of dengue cases in view of the unusually wet weather conditions.