`Chikungunya' panic takes root in rain-prone regions

`Chikungunya' panic takes root in rain-prone regions

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

After affecting hundreds of people in West and Central Java
provinces, the chikungunya epidemic has now spread to other
regions in the country, causing widespread panic in some areas.

In Jember, East Java, where only a few hundred people have
actually contracted the disease, many others have been rushing to
local hospitals fearing that they too had been infected.

A medical official in Jember, Susilo Wardani, said that people
in some areas had been coming to community health centers and
physicians to seek treatment for chikungunya, when in fact they
were suffering only from flus or mild fevers.

The official, however, said that the most appropriate step was
to immediately consult a healthcare worker so as to prevent the
spread of the disease.

Chikungunya, a viral fever carried by the Aedes albopictus
mosquito, is actually not fatal, and a strong and well-nourished
person should be able to weather it.

Health officials in Jember have told people in the affected
areas to take preventive measures against the recurrence of the
fever. People were told to drain or cover water receptacles, and
to fill in waterlogged holes that could be used by the mosquito
to breed.

Separately, West Nusa Tenggara Governor Harun Al Rasyid
slammed the local media for exaggerating the spread of
chikungunya in the province.

He remarked that the findings of a health team set up right
after the disease was first discovered there had revealed that
the effects of the disease were not as severe as the media had
reported.

The governor remarked that in a number of locations, patients
had been left without care due to a shortage of medicine, not on
account of the negligence of health workers.

In Bandung, West Java, where chikungunya struck for the first
time, people are now bracing themselves for further outbreaks of
another mosquito-borne disease, dengue fever.

Since last December, 250 people have come down with the fever
in the province's capital.

Health workers in the province have completed an investigation
to identify the last outbreak of dengue fever there.

One health official said that it was now the time of year for
dengue fever to emerge again after having completed its five year
cycle.

In a bid to prevent outbreaks of dengue fever, health agencies
in the province have started spraying insecticide to interrupt
the life cycle of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which carries the
disease.