Dengue cases keep on rising in Jakarta
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
While the city administration has not declared the current dengue outbreak to be an emergency, the number of dengue cases has continued to increase and have so far claimed 57 lives, mostly children, since January.
Jakarta Health Agency spokeswoman Evy Zelfino said on Monday that the number of dengue patients increased from 1,347 patients in June to 1,366 patients in July.
"There have been 57 deaths because of dengue fever. The number of patients in the first week of August reached 233, while the total since January stands at 10,700," she told The Jakarta Post.
She said that her agency did not consider the situation to be an emergency as the number of cases was still low.
"We will continue to monitor the situation. If there is a sudden increase in cases, we will declare an emergency," she said.
The city administration describes the situation as an emergency if 15 to 20 new cases are admitted each day to a hospital. Upon declaring an emergency, the administration allocates special funds and makes special efforts, including campaigns and medication measures, to prevent the outbreak from spreading.
The number of patients admitted to the state-owned Pasar Rebo Hospital in East Jakarta has been over 15 for the last two days.
The hospital's medical manager, Ellen Sianipar, said that if the trend continued the administration should declare an emergency in the area.
Evy said that her agency had to compare the admissions situation in a number of hospitals across Jakarta before declaring an emergency in the city.
"If a number of hospitals in several areas have high numbers of patients, then we will declare an emergency. Although we haven't declared an emergency yet, all dengue patients will receive free medication in 18 state hospitals throughout the city," she said.
Evy explained that the number of dengue cases could increase in the coming months as the rainy season started.
She said that the city administration had taken various measures to control the situation, including mapping the incidence of the disease across the capital, urging people to keep their environments clean, and fumigation.
"We have told people to spend 30 minutes every Friday morning doing such things as draining open tanks, covering bathing tanks and burying used cans. If we do this consistently, we can halt the spread of dengue," she said.
The Aedes aegypti mosquito, which spreads the virus that causes dengue fever, can be identified by black and white stripes on its legs.
The symptoms of dengue fever include a high fever of more than 38 degrees Celsius for between two and seven days, headache, severe joint pain, nausea and skin rash.
Dengue's incubation period is between eight and 10 days for adults and six days for children.
The Jakarta Health Agency recorded 18,000 cases of dengue fever last year, with 82 deaths, mostly involving children. The highest number of cases occurred in February and March, when over 5,000 people came down with the disease.
The agency's data also showed that the number of cases of dengue fever in Greater Jakarta hit a high of 15,360 in 1998. Meanwhile, there were 3,998 cases in 1999, 8,729 in 2000, 8,820 in 2001, 5,750 in 2002, and 14,071 in 2003.