Dengue death toll rises to 322, govt plans hiring 70,000 health workers
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.