Curbing dengue fever gets highest priority

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration is considering shelving "less urgent" projects and using the money to finance efforts to curb a dengue fever outbreak expected to peak next month.

Governor Sutiyoso said over the weekend that he has ordered his deputies to identify such projects which could be postponed in favor of dengue fever eradication campaigns.

"The number of people contracting the disease is increasing every day, while this fiscal year's city budget has to be slashed due to the economic crisis. We have to set priorities," he told journalists.

As of last Thursday, the death toll in the dengue outbreak had reached 63 with another 7,526 people hospitalized. Official statistics show that 200 people have contracted the virus every day over the past few weeks.

Hospitals across the city have been overwhelmed with seemingly endless admissions. Many patients have been treated in hospital corridors because beds are fully booked.

The administration has sent mattresses to hospitals and public health centers to accommodate the patients and has promised to build "temporary field hospitals" if existing facilities could no longer treat the patients.

The field-hospital concept would be implemented in cooperation with the Armed Forces. The facilities may be set up in vacant spaces within hospital complexes.

The administration also launched a mass movement for eradicating habitats of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the carrier of the dengue fever virus, last week.

Sutiyoso said he was disappointed because the public did not fully support the campaign.

"It's important that residents join hands to combat the epidemic and they should not rely solely on the government for it," he said.

City secretary Fauzi Bowo told reporters that, so far, the administration has allocated Rp 200 million (US$25,000) to finance dengue fever eradication campaigns.

The money was taken from funds earmarked for emergency purposes, he said.

In Bogor, Regent Eddie Yoso Martadipura reported Saturday that the death toll in the dengue outbreak there has risen to 21 as of Friday, up from 12 reported 10 days ago.

The number of people hospitalized for the disease rose to 619 from 355 over the same period, he said.

He has promised to look into reports that some government officials have charged residents money for mosquito fumigation.

"No official should add the people's burden at this time of crisis. I will find out who these individuals are," he said. (ind/24)