The electricity bills will soar because I shut all my windows and doors from 6pm till 9am and switch on the air conditioners in the hall, rooms and the whole house.

This is to shut out the 'vampires' looking for a blood meal and who are most active just after dark and again just before daylight.

Yes, I refer to that flying syringe with a flight range varying from less than one mile to several miles — the Aedes aegypti — which is one of the commoner vectors of dengue.

I think about those who could not afford air-conditioners and rising utility bills — like the case of Shamsul, a colleague in my company. He lives in 5th mile Ipoh Road. Two days ago his five-year old nephew suddenly died of dengue. Yesterday his 10-year old son had red spots and haemorrhagic fever and was diagnosed and hospitalised under the danger list for dengue. According to Shamsul, at least 400 in his neighbourhood have over last few months been infected by dengue.

Pure urban legend? Maybe but rumours have it that the scourge is not confined to lower income neighbourhood in which mosquitoes lay their eggs on fresh water accumulated in this rainy season on the leaves of plants, containers pots grooves and recesses in their zinc roofs.

Those in the upper middle-class neighbourhood of Taman Tun Dr Ismail and Damansara Jaya and Utama are not spared. Maybe because of the many nearby construction sites or hills and parks for jogging and recreation which may not have adequate environmental management to remove breeding places in still fresh water.

What are the statistics and the extent of the problem here?

If there is an epidemic outbreak, the Ministry of Health should be transparent and candid about it to the public. Don't use public panic as an excuse to be silent while trying ineffectual means of its own to tackle the growing problem.

We have the right to be informed as to what appropriate counter measures will or have been taken other than outlandish suggestion as that which I heard made by some bureaucrats in Selangor — to breed and use dragon flies to eat up dengue-carrying mosquitoes.

For dengue is a viral infection with high mortality casualties among younger children for which no vaccine exists and the only defence is one's own antibodies.

Dengue of course has always been around but this time a more virulent strain may have developed. Even its vector — the mosquitoes — may have developed insecticide resistance to survive a blast of Shelltox or DDT spray. It affects urban areas more. The epidemiology of dengue in Malaysia is also related to rainy seasons.

I hope malaysiakini will highlight here Lim Kit Siang's DAP four-point proposal by e-mail to Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to urgently tackle the worst dengue epidemic in the nation's history.

It is interesting that Kit Siang urged the PM's suspension of Health Minister Chua Jui Meng and Housing and Local Government Minister Ong Ka Ting respectively for their failure to heed the July warning of the World Health Organisation (WHO). He alluded to the inter-ministry bickering and squabbling between the Health Ministry and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government as to who was responsible to fight the recent outbreak.

As the Health Ministry and Local Government Ministry argue as to who should bear primary responsibility for countermeasures to tackle dengue, as mainstream media are muzzled not to spread public panic— such information being protected under the Official Secrets Act — and the government keeps silent or prevaricate, maybe the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) should come up with a statement, at least in general terms, to enlighten the public.

Malaysians have their young children vulnerable to dengue to think about — Official Secrets Act, squabbling over ministries' turf or otherwise.

There is something else. Besides organisation of insecticide application (chemical spraying) by pest control operators, there is another question of environmental management — whether the Housing and Local Government Ministry has laid down specifications and standards of housing regarding design of roof drainage channels, roof gutters, outdoor sinks etc to reduce opportunities for the vector mosquito to breed so easily, whether these have been complied by developers, and if not what enforcement measures have been taken.