Bandar Botanic Layout Plan

Bandar Botanic Layout Plan

Wednesday 11 March 2009

BBRAeNews No.72 - Vacant houses can be broken into to fog against dengue


To TMO and Residents of Vacant houses.
Published: Wednesday March 11, 2009 MYT 7:07:00 PM
By NG CHENG YEE - The Star Newspaper.
-edited by Andrew Sum
-Contributed by R.Selvaraj
PUTRAJAYA: Vacant houses suspected of being mosquito breeding grounds will be broken into by local authorities for fogging purposes.
(There are quite a number of vacant houses in Bandar Botanic and Ambang Botanic)
Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said local authorities had such right under the Vector Control Act if house owners failed to react to notices served to them within 14 days.
“We are also considering shortening the notification from 14 days to three to five days as part of the effort by the Government to tackle this problem,” he told a press conference here on Wednesday.
He said it was the ministry’s aim to reduce dengue cases throughout the country by 10,000 cases this year and the number of deaths caused by such cases from 0.22% to 0.2%.
Until March 7 this year, he said, the number of dengue cases was 10,916 cases with 31 deaths, which was 35% higher than the same period last year.
“A total of 52% cases and 71% deaths reported happened in Selangor while cases in Penang, Perak and Kedah have also increased,” he said.
Last year, there were 7,134 cases with 12 deaths. Liow said 53% of the death could be saved if patients were treated early.
“All these cases could be avoided if patients received treatment as soon as they showed symptoms of such disease,” he said.
He said the ministry would also conduct fogging work in a wider area of 400 metre radius, compared to the previous 200 metre radius in epidemic area.
“Local authorities must also ensure that 85% of the epidemic area is under control within two weeks.
“We will also cut the response time for fogging to 24 to 48 hours once a dengue case is reported to control the spreading of such cases,” he said.
He said 1,000 additional staff would be employed to tackle the problem and operation centres would also be set up in all states throughout the country to monitor such epidemic.Liow said the ministry had issued 18,469 compounds last year and 59,518 compounds this year to owners who failed to ensure that their premises were clean and mosquito free

6 comments:

Ben Phang said...

I am at 26, Jenaris 8 and had the bad luck of having a neighbor who has left his house vacant for almost 4 years. The compound is overgrown with lallang and weed which is a good breeding ground for mosquitoes. To make matter worse, the house is used as a storage area for construction materials. The owner must be a renovation contractor, a very rich one to use a RM400K residential house as a store.

Over the past 2 years, I have made complains to the owner but he claimed that the house has been sold. Complains to MPK had resulted in MPK issuing several summonses pasted but other than that no further action. MPK seem powerless in dealing with this type of problem. May be MPK is waiting for some residents to come down with Aedes Dengue before they will act or enforce the Vector Control Act. In the meantime, my family and I live in fear and pray that the mosquitoes are not of the Aedes type.

The politicians can talk, the authorities can response lightly but in the meanwhile residents like us can only wait and wait until ..........

Unknown said...

My sympathies go to you, Ben. It is so frustrating dealing with a difficult and inconsiderate neighbor. To rely on MPK is simply not enough. Suggest you seek other solutions to resolve the matter with your neighbor.

Sunny Ho said...

Hi Ben, do you think that we use some of the construction materials to constructed and beautify our guard houses :-)

John Lim said...

I have wrote in to MPK requesting a fumigation 4 weeks ago. As usual slow or ignoring the request. If anyone contacted dengue during this period let me know. We'll publicize the matter.

Jimmy said...

Prevention better than cure. Lets call in the press and show them around. Let Klang people know the inefficient MPK, even under new PR government, NO DIFFERENCE!

Our Adun for Bandar Botanic is in Taiping and his fellow politicians who promised to look after his constituency are not doing the job, except for small interests from MP Charles Santiago.

John, lets not wait until one of us come down with dengue fever before we react. Lets organise a gotong royong together with MPK and other agencies to clean up and rid Bandar Botanic of these dreaded mosquitoes.

Ben, buy some grass killer and pour them all over your neighbor's compound. When the grass dry up in this hot period, pray for lightning to strike and start a fire and hopefully burnt down that rich bas.... building. Its no joke.

John Lim said...

Noted your comment, Jimmy.