DAP Member of Parliament for Bandar Melaka, Lim Kit Siang, today issued the following statement:
1. Call on Health Minister, Tan Sri Lee Siok Yew, to instruct that anti-dengue posters in Chinese should be put up in all towns and new villages to more effectively involve the people in the fight against the killer disease
Dengue fever has become the No.1 killer disease in Malaysia, wit death toll and victims mounting day by day, without let up. The Health Ministry, although it has some two years to combat this dengue fever, has proved to be helpless and hopeless to check the death march of dengue fever.
What is needed is clearly a more imaginative nation-wide campaign to fight dengue fever, involving all Malaysians, both in urban and rural areas.
During the past week, I have travelled the length and breadth of West Malaysia, and in some towns and new villages I can see anti-dengue banners, calling on the people to fight this killer disease.
These banners are not effective at all, for the simple reason that they are written only in Bahasa Malaysia, which to most elderly persons in towns and new villages, are foreign to them. They may understand the words, if spoken, but very few can read Bahasa Malaysia in script.
I therefore call on Tan Sri Lee Siok Yew to instruct that anti-dengue posters and banners should be in Chinese and other languages, so that all Malaysians, regardless of race, can be fully involved in this deadly battle against the killer disease. This is one instance to illustrate that a bit of common sense and imagination would be make the Ministry of health’s efforts more effective and productive.
2. Call for the formation of local anti-dengue groups to keep their houses and environs aedes-mosquito free
Another suggestion idea which Tan Sri Lee Siok Yew can implement is to form local anti-dengue groups, working in close liaison with the Ministry of Health, and well supplied with anti-aedes mosquito sprays, to keep their houses and environs dengue-free.
What is needed is the leadership from the Minister of health, Tan Sri Lee Siok Yew. Now that Tan Sri Lee has come back from his vacation abroad, during a period when more and more have died from dengue fever. I hope he can act with greater seriousness and purpose in leading the national fight against dengue fever.