Administration accused of slow response to dengue

Administration accused of slow response to dengue

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration has been criticized for
its slow response in fighting dengue hemorrhagic fever, which so
far has killed five people across the capital this year.

Speaking at a hearing with the City Health Agency, city
councillor Lambertus Gaina Dara of the Indonesian Democratic
Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) said that many people did not
recognize the early symptoms of the disease.

"The city administration must step up its prevention campaign
before the disease claims more lives," Lambertus said.

"Most victims, which are still in the first and second stages
of the disease, are outpatients. Some of them sought medical
treatment at the hospital, but they were neglected."

He was responding to recent reports that several people with
dengue fever were denied admittance to hospitals, while they had
been outpatients.

Many cases of dengue fever have occurred in subdistricts where
many used tires had been left in the open. The mosquitoes breed
in the rainwater that collects in the tires. Among the
subdistricts are Kebon Jeruk and Kembangan in West Jakarta, and
Cawang and Kebon Pala in East Jakarta.

The agency recorded 953 dengue fever cases in the capital from
the beginning of this year to Feb. 7. East Jakarta had the most
with 339 cases, South Jakarta 194, West Jakarta 180, North 136
and Central Jakarta 98 cases.

Meanwhile, the Tangerang municipal health office has stepped
up prevention measures against an outbreak of dengue fever, which
has been contracted by 12 people over the past month.

The office's head of environmental and contagious diseases
unit, Liza Puspadewi, said on Thursday a campaign to raise
people's awareness of dengue fever had been launched across the
mayoralty.

She said the office had also intensified the use of abate
powder to kill eggs of aedes aegypty mosquitoes, the carrier of
the virus, which are usually laid on the surface of still water.
The campaign has been conducted in 18 dengue-prone subdistricts.

Residents have also been advised to spray or burn mosquito
repellent in the daytime, the most common time for aedes aegypty
mosquitoes to bite humans.

The disease affected 128 people across the mayoralty last
year, two of whom died.

With the disease expected to escalate between March and May,
the health office has urged people to eradicate the mosquitoes
this month. (41/07)