Dengue cases increase, 'not yet' an emergency
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The number of dengue fever patients is likely to increase, but it has not yet reached the point of being considered an emergency, said an official.
"As of last Friday the total number of dengue patients from January to August in Jakarta districts stood at 10,700 people whereas total number of dengue patients in 2004 was about 20,000 people," the City Health Agency spokeswoman Zelfino told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
The administration's policy was to declare an emergency situation only if 15 to 20 new cases were being admitted each day to a hospital.
According to the manager of medical services at Pasar Rebo Hospital, Ellen Sianipar, the hospital had treated a total of 38 patients since July, whereas by last Thursday the total number of inpatients stood at 30, including 9 children.
Only five male patients were occupying the additional beds placed in the foyer area outside the inpatient rooms on the seventh floor.
The hospital has a total of 40 additional beds.
City-owned Budhi Asih Hospital, in East Jakarta, is currently treating a total of 28 inpatients, including 10 children.
"We had 10 new inpatients on Friday morning," said Niniek Kartaadmadja of the hospital's medical services department.
She said that there was one patient receiving treatment in the hospital's intensive care unit.
"We have no patients in the corridors, for the time being," she said, adding that only three of the 30 additional beds were in use in the wards.
Another city-owned hospital in Central Jakarta, Tarakan Hospital, now has a total of 24 dengue fever patients, including eight children.
"Two patients were discharged this morning," said nurse Lasmaria on Saturday.
Zelfino said the number of inpatients in city-owned hospitals was likely to increase. However, she said, the number of dengue patients at other private hospitals apparently did not show such a rise.
"This is probably due to the free treatment for dengue fever at class III rooms of city-owned hospitals in Jakarta districts," Zelfino said, adding that even though a patient did not show a welfare card, the person would be automatically be entitled to free treatment.
Since the beginning of this year, the city administration has run campaigns to clean up neighborhoods, in an effort to eliminate breeding grounds for the dengue virus' host, the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
However, not all of the community has participated in the campaign.
Zaidah, 39, was getting ready to take her eight-year-old daughter Amira home to Asem Baris, South Jakarta.
Amira had been treated for weeks in the children's ward in Budhi Asih hospital.
"I don't know where she got the mosquito bite. None of our neighbors got dengue fever because the area had been fumigated several times," Zaidah told the Post.
She said that she might have got it when she was at school considering that her classroom alongside a bathroom, which was not terribly clean.
"Moreover, there is a garden with several empty cans scattered around and puddles in front of her classroom," she added.