Dengue: Muhyiddin chairs national-level committee meeting

Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin today chaired the Meeting of the National-Level Committee on Dengue in efforts to implement more effective measures to tackle the increase in dengue fever cases in the country.

The Deputy Prime Minister was accompanied by Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S.Subramaniam at the meeting held in Parliament House, here, which among others involved various parties including the state governments, local authorities and other agencies.

On July 1, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced the formation of a special task force to tackle the public concern on the rising cases of dengue fever throughout the country lately.

The task force, led by the Deputy Prime Minister, also comprised ministers from the Health Ministry, Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Ministry and the Works Ministry.

The rise in the number of dengue cases was due to various factors such as dirty environment, the changing stereotyped dengue virus, human movement factor, changing weather as well as urbanisation.

The formation of the Task Force would assist the Health Ministry in tackling various issues on dengue which were outside their jurisdiction such as garbage management, building site management involving contractors or developers, building structures that had turned into Aedes breeding ground and drainage system which was not maintained.