January 30, 2004

Malaysia Promises Bird Flu Transparency

Malaysia promised to be transparent with information if the bird flu disease is found here.

The vow follows Thailand's admission that it kept its bird flu outbreak under wraps. The disease has also been found in one of Malaysia's other neighbors, Indonesia, where officials have been attacked for being too slow in responding to its outbreak.

Malaysia was criticized for an initial delay in setting up public information systems when severe acute respiratory syndrome occurred last year.

Malaysia's neighbor Singapore, which is also believed free of bird flu, has urged Malaysia to come clean quickly if it turns up.

"In a disease outbreak you cannot withhold information because ... it will come out" anyway, Health Minister Chua Jui Meng said. "Singapore can be rest assured that we will be very transparent."

Chua said Friday that no bird flu cases had been reported in Malaysia.

Bird flu has been reported by 10 Asian governments and tens of millions of chickens have been killed by the virus or culled to prevent its spread. Eight people have died in Vietnam and two in Thailand, where the disease has jumped to humans.

Chua said ministers and health experts who met in Bangkok Wednesday pledged to tighten surveillance and to set up a regional veterinary network to combat the outbreak.

"A regional surveillance network will help us to establish an early warning system in terms of diseases among animals that has a potential to spread to humans," Chua said.