Dengue admittances continue to rise daily
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
A five-year old dengue patient died on Thursday evening at the Budi Asih hospital in East Jakarta while four others were in critical condition at Pasar Rebo hospital also in East Jakarta on Friday as the number of dengue cases continues to rise in the capital.
Jidan, who lived with his parents in Kalibata, Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, died at 11:30 p.m. in Budi Asih's intensive care unit on Thursday after being admitted to the hospital early in the morning.
"He was fine in the beginning, but after several hours his condition deteriorated. We brought him to the ICU but he died before midnight," Ida, an information officer of the city-run Budi Asih hospital, said on Friday.
Meanwhile, four children are still being treated at the ICU of Pasar Rebo hospital and their condition is reported to be critical.
The four are Ibnu Safera, four, from Cijantung in East Jakarta; Gigih Sutawijaya, six, from Ciracas, also in East Jakarta; Inggrid Selfina, nine, from Pejaten Timur, South Jakarta and Andi Sutiyana, 13, from Pancoran Mas, Depok, West Java.
Pasar Rebo hospital spokesman Dedi Suryadi said that the four patients needed intensive treatment as their parents took them to the hospital when they were already seriously ill.
Jakarta Health Agency spokesman Evy Zelfino said over 17,000 people across the capital had been admitted into hospitals since January, of which 76 people, mostly children, have died.
She said that the number of dengue patients admitted to hospital continued to rise in the last several weeks.
As the number of dengue fever cases continues to increase in the capital, several hospitals have been forced to treat patients on additional beds along the corridors.
A total of 62 patients were being treated at Budi Asih hospital as of Friday, with 18 admitted on Friday. Thirty-one of them were being treated along the corridors as rooms allocated for dengue patients were all full.
A similar increase in the number of patients was also experienced by Pasar Rebo, Tarakan hospital in Central Jakarta and Fatmawati hospital in South Jakarta. Dozens of patients were treated along the corridors of those hospitals.
The number of dengue patients in Fatmawati, for instance, reached 51 in November this year compared to 28 people last year.
The hospital said that they received six dengue patients every day.
Despite the continued increase in dengue cases, Evy said that the administration had not declared the situation an emergency.
"We have our own criteria for declaring an emergency situation," she said.
The administration assesses the dengue outbreak as an emergency if 15 to 20 new cases are admitted each day to a hospital.
Upon declaring an emergency, the administration will allocate special funds and launch a massive campaign on dengue eradication and other measures to prevent the outbreak from spreading.