31 villagers may have been infected with Chikungunya

31 villagers may have been infected with Chikungunya

Theresia Sufa, The Jakarta Post, Bogor

At least 31 residents of two neighborhoods units of Kayu Manis
village, Cibadak subdistrict, Tanah Sareal regency, have been
diagnosed with Chikungunya, a health agency official said on
Thursday.

The head of the Bogor health agency team to eradicate
Chikungunya, Nuraini, claimed the agency was conducting blood
tests on samples taken from 10 residents. The results will be
available within a week.

"Eighteen of the patients have already recovered," Nuraini,
who is also head of Kayu Manis community health center, told The
Jakarta Post.

One of the patients, Nanah, 39, said she had been suffering
from the disease since early January.

"I couldn't walk. I had a high fever and red spots appeared on
my body. I went to see the doctor, who prescribed various
medicines, including antibiotics," she said.

Admitting that response to the outbreak had been belated,
Nuraini said the health agency had opened a clinic on Tuesday in
one of the neighborhood units, which provided information on the
disease and free examinations and treatment.

The agency had also fumigated the area to prevent the disease
from spreading.

"The patients said they had been ill since early in the month.
If they had visited the community health center at that time, we
might have taken action sooner," Nuraini remarked.

Similar to dengue fever, Chikungunya is characterized by an
extremely high fever. It is caused by a self-limiting febrile
virus that is transmitted through the bite of either the Aedes
africanus or the Aedes albopictus mosquito, which breeds in both
suburban and rural areas.

People who suffer from Chikungunya usually experience muscular
aches, followed by extremely high fever and a rash. As the
disease progresses, they will experience paralyzing pain
throughout the body. There is as yet no cure for the disease.

Many cases of Chikungunya were also reported in early January
in some regions of Central Java province and also in West
Jakarta.

The disease was first detected in West Java and Yogyakarta in
January last year. Later it spread as far as West Timor, South
Sulawesi and West Kalimantan.

The central government had warned that further outbreaks of
Chikungunya were possible anywhere in Indonesia as the spread of
the disease could not be predicted or anticipated, unless the
breeding grounds of its carriers were cleaned up.