Cabinet on Wednesday should increase from RM50 to RM200 as compensation for each pig destroyed and admit that the 90 deaths in Negri Sembilan and the ruination of the RM2.5 billion pig rearing and pork industry could have been averted if the Health Ministry had heeded warning as far back as November  that another virus apart from JE could be the killer virus


Speech (2)
- 1999 Supplementary Estimates

by Lim Kit Siang  

(Dewan Rakyat, Monday): When I spoke in Parliament during the debate on the Royal Address on April 8, 1999, I said that over 90 per cent of the deaths in Bukit Pelanduk, until recently the biggest pig-rearing centre not only in Malaysia but in South-East Asia, were  unnecessary and avoidable - the result of criminal negligence and in particular Ministerial bungling in not putting in place an effective programme to contain  the viral outbreak when deaths began to mount  - at least by March 5, when there were already eight deaths in the Bukit Pelanduk area.

I had also pointed out that as early as January 16, a top  Malaysian virologist Jane Cardoza from Unimas, Sarawak had already raised the alarm that it was probably not the Japanese encephalitis (JE) virus which was the causing the havoc to lives and the industry, but another killer virus.

I now wish to revise what I said in Parliament, and to declare that all the 85 deaths in Negri Sembilan (80 in Bukit Pelanduk and 5 in Sikamat) were avoidable and unnecessary and the ruination of the RM2.5 billion pig rearing and pork industry could have been averted if the Health Ministry had heeded the warning as far back as November that they should be looking for another virus killer.

The gravity of Ministerial bungling has been further highlighted in the recent article on the viral encephalitis disaster in Malaysia in the 16th April 1999 (Volume 284) of the  Science magazine, the publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, entitled "New virus fingered in Malaysian Epidemic"  by Martin Enserink.

Reporting on the unmasking of a new virus killer in Malaysia, the article said that the Malaysian health authorities initially assumed that they were dealing with an outbreak of JE, which causes similar symptoms.  It reported the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) as stating that the Nipah virus was the main culprit and that the JE virus had played "at best a marginal role in the continuing tragedy."

It said:

With this report and revelation that as far back as November, the Health Ministry had been alerted to look for another killer virus apart from the JE virus, it is clear that all the 85 deaths in Negri Sembilan could have been avoided if this warning had been heeded, as the first case of  viral encephalitis in Bukit Pelanduk started only in the last week of February and even the first case of  viral encephalitis in Sikamat was only reported  in early  January.

After Chua Jui Meng’s misdiagnosis and mishandling of the so-called Coxsackie B Virus epidemic in Sarawak (which killed 41 people and not 20 as mentioned by David Quek in the Science article), it is most tragic that there should be another misdiagnosis, mistreatment and mishandling of another viral outbreak disaster costing 100 lives and the collapse of the RM2.5 billion pig rearing and pork industry.

It is most unsatisfactory and disgraceful that Malaysians had to depend on foreign sources to get information about what is happening in their own  country, including about the viral encephalitis disaster.  For instance, on 21st April, 1999, the World Health Organisation Regional Office for the Western Pacific in Manila gave the following statistics about the viral encephalitis outbreak in Malaysia:
 

Chua Jui Meng has refused up to now to admit that the JE is a marginal problem in the viral encephalitis outbreak which had killed 100 people, and that it is primarily caused by the Nipah virus.

I call on the Health Minister, Datuk Chua Jui Meng to make amends for his shocking Ministerial bungling and incompetence in allowing the viral encephalitis outbreak in Perak last month, which had already claimed the lives of some 15 people, to get out of control until one hundred lives were sacrified and the RM2.5 billion pig rearing and pork industry virtually collapsed.

As a first step, the Cabinet should increase from RM50 to RM200 as compensation for each pig destroyed.  The government should fully understand and sympathise with the pig farmers who are dissatisfied with the financial aid for the destruction of their animals, especially as it is now clear that they are the victims of gross government negligence and incompetence in refusing to heed warnings as far back as last November that it was not the JE virus which was the killer virus.


(3/5/99)


*Lim Kit Siang - Malaysian Parliamentary Opposition Leader, Democratic Action Party Secretary-General & Member of Parliament for Tanjong