PUTRAJAYA: Fourteen new influenza A (H1N1) cases have been reported in the country, 11 of them imported and three local transmissions.

Health Ministry director-general Tan Sri Dr Ismail Merican said the new cases involved 11 Malaysians and three foreigners - one Australian, one New Zealander and one Indonesian.

The imported cases had visited Australia, Indonesia, Singapore and New Zealand, he told a press conference here yesterday.
Currently, he said 47 patients were being treated at hospitals and all were responding well to treatment.

Dr Ismail said 111 patients had recovered from the disease and had been discharged from hospital.

He said two schools - Chung Hwa High School in Seremban and SM Tsun Jin in Kuala Lumpur - were closed after locally-transmitted cases were reported.

He added that 713 people were undergoing home quarantine, of whom four were showing flu symptoms.

So far, he said, the percentage of contacts the ministry had failed to trace was 10%.

"Most of them have given us wrong addresses but we managed to track down all the close contacts," he said.

Dr Ismail denied the ministry was overreacting, adding that it was instead being proactive in its preventive measures.

"We have given advice to people who returned from overseas so that they can take care of themselves.

"The responsibility (to prevent the spread of the disease) should not be borne solely by the ministry but also the public," he added.

He said if the patients or those under home quarantine did not follow instructions, they would not only spread the disease to others but would also suffer from complications.

"We have done fairly well in containing the disease, which is why it is not as widespread as in other countries," he said.

"We are facing a pandemic situation here where a significant number of deaths have been reported worldwide and we do not want the same thing to happen in our country.

"We would rather do more than less to prevent ourselves from running into problems in the future.

"If we relax and do not test our measures now, we will not be fully prepared for the emergence of a new influenza virus and the coming of the second wave of the disease," he said.

Dr Ismail said a technical committee meeting on the disease would be held to discuss issues, including those faced by the tourism industry.

On another matter, Dr Ismail said the National Service trainee who was found dead in his bed at the Guar Chenderai Camp in Padang Besar was an asthma patient.

"We are still waiting for the official autopsy result," he added. -The Star/ANN