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Health Minister Datuk Chua Jui Meng must answer all questions about SARS in order to inspire public confidence Press Statement by Chong Eng (Petaling Jaya, Wednesday): Health Minister Chua Jui Meng and his officers gave a briefing on SARS to Members of Parliament yesterday. The briefing was suggested by DAP MP for Kota Melaka, Kerk Kim Hock on April 1, 2003 when Chua refused to entertain any more appeals by MPs for further clarification on the subject when he wound up the Supplementary Budget debate on his ministry.  The briefing started off with a power point presentation on basic information on SARS followed by a 20-minute question and answer session. Only seven MPs had the chance to ask questions. In fact, we had to rush through the session because Parliament meeting would reconvene at 2.30 p.m.  The short question and answer session is regrettable. The way Chua answered my questions was even more disappointing. I asked two questions:  When did the Health Ministry first discover SARS cases in Malaysia? The Director General of Health had insisted on March 31, 2003 that Malaysia was free from SARS and that there were no confirmed or suspected cases. However, the next day, he reported that there were 44 suspected SARS cases. The number later increased to 56 on April 2, 65 on April 3 and 71 on April 4. I asked Chua to explain why there was a drastic jump from no cases on March 31 to 44 suspected cases on April 1.  Why was there such a big difference in terms of SARS mortality rate between Malaysia and other countries? Chua had said that Malaysia so far had only one probable SARS case and the same person died. This amounted to a 100% mortality rate compared  to 3-5% in other countries.  When answering my questions, Chua said, “It appears that Malaysia not only have SARS but also the disease of suspicion (perasaan syak wasangka). These people refused to believe the statistics given by the government.” He did not answer any of my questions.  At the end of the briefing, I asked Chua again how come there was a sudden surge of SARS cases from zero on March 31 to 44 on April 1. He replied that he did not know and asked me to ask the Director General who was not present to answer any questions. The Deputy Director General who was present was however also not able to provide any answers.  My conclusion is that the Health Ministry did not give the public the true situation about SARS before April 1. It is this dishonesty that resulted in the lack of public confidence in the Ministry.  If Chua is interested in building public confidence, he must answer all SARS-related questions honestly, accurately and in a timely fashion. Threatening the use of the Internal Security Act or launching personal attacks on people who raise legitimate questions would not only not help him to inspire public confidence but would also further erode his own image and that of his Ministry.  Chua declared that for the sake of the people, he had risked SARS infection by traveling to Singapore, a SARS-infected country to learn from the Singaporean government the way of handling the killer virus. While that may be commendable, Chua should also learn from the folly of China and heed the advice of MP for Batu Gajah, Fong Po Kuan to be fully transparent in the reporting of SARS cases. (9/4/2003) * Chong Eng, DAP Deputy Secretary General and MP for Bukit Mertajam