Dengue death toll rises to 322, govt plans hiring 70,000 health workers
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The number of deaths caused by the current dengue fever outbreak rose from 312 to 322 on Saturday, a health officer says.
The Secretary of the Directorate General of Communicable Diseases at the Ministry of Health, Syafii Ahmad, told The Jakarta Post on Saturday that the 10 people had died in locations outside Jakarta, although the capital city has the highest number of dengue fever cases in the country.
Ministry spokesman Mariani Reksoprojo said 17,300 people had been infected with the mosquito-borne disease since Jan. 1, in 24 of the country's 32 provinces.
She said that about 15,000 of those infected were from 13 seriously hit provinces, including the six provinces of Java island.
Health officials are checking whether a new strain of virus could be to blame for the unusually high death rate this year from dengue. Dengue outbreaks are an annual occurrence here.
Mariani said health officials were working around the clock to monitor the treatment of poor patients at hospitals around the country.
"We are working very hard to reduce the number of deaths in seriously hit provinces," she told Agence France Presse.
The number of infections is more than double that of the same period of last year. Hospitals need extra beds and patients are sleeping in corridors.
Syafii said on Friday that the government would recruit and train tens of thousands of health workers in an attempt to stop the spread of dengue fever.
With the outbreak showing no signs of slowing, the Ministry of Health said it plans to spend 1 trillion rupiah (US$118 million) on a campaign to recruit and train 70,000 nurses to eradicate the disease, treat the sick, and educate people on how to prevent the disease from spreading.
President Megawati Soekarnoputri on Thursday expressed "deep sorrow" at the deaths.
She urged the public to clean bathtubs and water tanks and bury unused containers to prevent the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which spread the disease, from breeding.
Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla said earlier that he had asked all hospitals to provide poor people with free treatment for dengue fever. The government has also disbursed Rp 50 billion (US$5.9 million) to deal with the outbreak.
Meanwhile, Vice President Hamzah Haz urged the government to increase the state budget for health, saying that the health budget should be used not only for medical treatment but also for preventive measures.
"The ideal health budget is around 10 to 15 percent of the total state budget, while the present is only seven percent of the total," Hamzah said.