I must express my surprise at reading the accusation made by Leow Yit Kan, political secretary to Health Minister Chua Jui Meng that Lim Kit Siang's challenge to Chua was o­ne made in order to gain political mileage.

As Sars continues to threaten the lives of Malaysians, irrespective of race, age, gender and background, with each passing day, Leow should be busy spending his energy to ensure that the Health Ministry and the government effectively combat the spread of this killer virus instead of wasting time trying to rebut Lim's remarks against Chua.

The truth of the matter is that Chua persisted in his denial of a Sars outbreak until March 27, urging Malaysians not to panic. Five days later, however, Health Ministry director-general Dr Mohamed Taha Arif suddenly came out with a figure of 59 suspect Sars cases in Malaysia and 19 quarantine cases, in contrast to his proclamation o­nly 48 hours earlier that Malaysia was "free from Sars" as well as the assertion by the health minister a week ago that his ministry had not received any information o­n reported suspect Sars cases.

If Chua's initial contention that Malaysia was free from Sars is true, then the growing rate of Sars-related cases in Malaysia, i.e. 59 cases in a matter of five days, must be the fastest in the world. Otherwise, o­ne can o­nly conclude that the Health Ministry was being untruthful to the public.

Moreover, the death of a 64-year-old Chinese man from Jerantut in the Kuala Lumpur Hospital is proof of the first Sars probable case in Malaysia after the release of the post-mortem report o­n April 5.

He was admitted to the Tawakal Hospital after he was taken ill upon his return from China in mid-March. His condition became worse and he was subsequently admitted to the KL Hospital o­n March 27. Disturbingly, during this entire period, the Health Ministry continued to claim that Malaysia was free from Sars.

In addition, several Chinese dailies had highlighted the Sars issue o­n the front-page of the night edition o­nly to be directed by the authorities to relegate reporting o­n Sars to the inner pages. Chua also imposed a ban o­n state health directors from releasing any information o­n Sars to the media, limiting such statements o­nly to himself and Mohamad Taha and any other health officials empowered by them to do so.

The above examples clearly show that the Health Ministry is not pro-active in handling the Sars outbreak in Malaysia. The ministry had failed to be fully open and transparent in dealing with the Sars outbreak, which is no different from how it handled the worst dengue epidemic in the nation's history.

Public fear and panic will o­nly occur and so-called 'rumours' accepted by the people if the government is concealing facts and not disclosing them. If the Health Ministry is o­n top of its job, why does Leow need to be so quick to refute the allegations of Lim o­n behalf of Chua?

My reply to Leow is this: Let the people judge for themselves whether the Health Ministry is doing the best it can and whether the postulations of Lim are unfounded or made out of true concern based o­n real facts and figures.