Another crisis: Dengue fever
Dengue fever is no stranger to Indonesia, but this year's outbreak is said to be one of the most serious in recent history. At least 12 provinces are currently being affected by this killer disease. The latest government data reports that 207 people, out of 7,585 hospitalized with the disease, have died. The figures far exceed last year's totals of 10 fatalities and 2,323 hospitalized.
Jakarta, with its sprawling slum areas, has been the most affected by the outbreak, hitting 261 of the city's 265 subdistricts. At least 43 people have died and 2,993 others have been hospitalized here since January.
The ballooning number of people infected has forced some hospitals to turn away people seeking medical attention because their are already full. The number of dengue cases will surely increase drastically if the government and the public do not take prompt measures to curb the spread of the aedes aegypti, the mosquito which transmits the virus.
In an effort to bring the outbreak under control, the minister of health will kick off a national anti-dengue drive in East and South Jakarta, the city's most affected areas. Unfortunately, the campaign faces several challenges which authorities must confront with a shortage of resources.
A health official has said that mass fumigation operations would be largely ineffective in combating the disease's spread. Such fumigations only kill adult aedes mosquitoes, failing to exterminate larva growing in stagnant water.
Although a city health official has said there are 99 hospitals and 474 public health centers in Jakarta that are still able to take in new patients, logistical problems persist for people looking for treatment.
Some hospitals that are full might be uninformed where they should send patients they must turn away, while the public may become panicked should it not be clear which institutions are already rejecting patients. Some dengue sufferers have been reportedly taken to the hospital too late because relatives mistook the symptoms for influenza, which creates a high fever much like dengue. Many Indonesians simply lack the necessary formation to detect dengue.
A shortage of nurses also creates a problem, evident even at the Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital, the country's largest medical facility. In treating this extraordinary outbreak, each nurse there has to take care of seven patients even though the ideal ratio is one nurse to three patients. The great influx of dengue patients has also forced the hospital to accommodate them in rooms designed for people suffering from other illnesses.
Since this year's outbreak comes at a time of economic crisis, which is pushing Indonesia back in time in its development efforts, low-income dengue victims face the further hardship of finding ways to pay for medical expenses when it is already difficult to make ends meet. Health officials say that treating dengue is comparatively more expensive than treating other diseases.
The authorities need to see to it that all hospitals treat low-income patients free of charge, especially the jobless. Every hospital in the country has a social program to help poor patients receive treatment but many have complained that their budget cannot cope with the increasing number of poor people seeking treatment.