PETALING JAYA, July 6 — Doctors and general practitioners must ensure all major diseases are reported to the health authorities no matter how remote their suspicions might be.

Negri Sembilan Health Department director Dr Abdul Rahim Abdullah said this when told of claims that his department’s chikungunya statistics of only two cases so far this year were inaccurate.

He said the alleged unreported cases made it all the more important for both public and private doctors to notify the health authorities on suspicion of diseases.

“By not reporting such cases we would be left in the dark. The reports form a crucial part of our surveillance efforts, especially since diseases like chikungunya come in clusters of families,” he told Malay Mail.

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Failure in reporting could result in the doctor being found guilty under the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988, which can result in fines, imprisonment or both.

Although chikungunya is not on the Act’s list of infectious diseases that must be reported, Dr Abdul Rahim urged them to report it nonetheless.

“If he or she is negligent in doing so, the doctor in question could also be brought before the Malaysian Medical Council for professional misconduct as well,” said Dr Abdul Rahim.

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A 54-year-old Seremban teacher claimed she contracted chikungunya in April when her family went to Semenyih for Qing Ming prayers.

“Five of us, including my mother, brother, his wife and my nephew, began to suffer from high fever on the same day,” she said.

“When we went to the first doctor at a private clinic, he sent us for dengue tests.”

Only her mother tested positive for dengue, which she was treated for and subsequently recovered.

However, the teacher and her four relatives suffered from a prolonged period of joint pains after the fever ended.

“Our test results revealed our blood platelet count dropped only slightly, unlike that of dengue patients. This both surprised and puzzled the doctor and lab testers at the private hospital. In the end, we were prescribed antibiotics,” she said.

Two weeks later, her maid contracted the same symptoms and the teacher consulted a second private doctor, where she was informed that it was most likely chikungunya.

“Even though he was not wholly sure himself, he eventually sent my maid for dengue test. Ironically, he began experiencing the same symptoms not long after, as did my regular pharmacist and his brother,” she said.

Several others also contracted the symptoms, including the mother of the teacher’s neighbour. She said the neighbour’s mother went to Singapore two months later to visit her son, where she was diagnosed by doctors there as having chikungunya.

“Remember that none of us were ever tested for chikungunya. I do not even know what it is like or if there is one, having learned of the virus’ symptoms online. It’s been three months but we are still experiencing sore joints,” she said.

The virus brought about new pains and aggravated existing ones, such as the worsening of a foot fracture she sustained at the end of January. At its most severe, even putting on clothes was painful.

“Commonly it is the shoulder and foot joints, near the ankle, that are most painful. I think there may be many more cases that were unreported, as my pharmacist said that there has been a sudden increase of people buying inflammation gel for joint pains in the past few months,” she said.

Former Malaysian Medical Association president Datuk Dr N.K.S. Tharmaseelan said doctors in the country are trained to primarily detect malaria and dengue, since both diseases are fatal.

“Both chikungunya and dengue share the Aedes mosquito as a vector, and have overlapping symptoms in the early stages. To my knowledge, no one in Malaysia has died of chikungunya,” he said.

Because of this, determining chikungunya is a long-term process, with a minimum waiting period of at least two weeks before anything can be made clear.

“Doctors tend to play it safe as they seek to rule out dengue, which poses a more immediate threat to one’s life, before seeking out other non-fatal diseases such as chikungunya. Its treatment is also similar to dengue, as doctors aim to curb its spread,” said Dr Tharmaseelan.

As a virus-borne disease he said there is no cure for chikungunya, and doctors can only focus on aiding the patient in recovering, with conditional and symptomatic treatment as well.