According to the trends we have reported, we expect that the next outbreak of HEV71 in Sarawak will be in 2006. At the time of writing we have already begun to pick up HEV71 cases in our sentinel programme and from past experience, an outbreak in Sarawak is often followed by outbreaks in other countries in the region. We have therefore decided to put our data into the public domain in order that other public health practitioners in the Asia Pacific region may benefit from this experience and prepare for a spread of HEV71 in the region once again in the months to come.