Dengue epidemic may be lessening

Dengue epidemic may be lessening

JAKARTA (JP): The dengue fever epidemic, which has claimed at
least 78 lives in Jakarta in less than five months, is showing
signs of abating, a senior government official says.

The number of people admitted to hospitals for the disease has
significantly dropped thanks to government-sponsored fumigation
against the virus carrier, the Aedes Aegypty mosquito, deputy
governor of social welfare, Djailani, said over the weekend.

In the first week of this month, the number of dengue patients
admitted to hospitals was 249 compared with the 1,500 admissions
reported over the same time span in previous months, he said.

"The campaign should go on to eradicate the mosquitoes,
although I'm not that optimistic that the disease can be totally
eradicated," Djailani told reporters.

As of last Friday, the death toll in the dengue outbreak in
Jakarta had reached 78, while some 9,488 had been hospitalized.
The national death toll is 780 and over 33,000 infected,
according to Ministry of Health statistics.

Soeparmo, chief of City Council Commission E for social
welfare, cautioned that the declining number of patients should
not lead people to believe the crisis was over.

"We should remain on alert because it was believed the
outbreak would peak in May or June," he said.

Separately, Ulla Nuchrawaty, deputy chairwoman of the Jakarta
Red Cross, noted that the demand for blood had also dropped.

"The number of people asking for blood has slightly dropped
over the last two weeks," she said.

Ulla said the number of people requiring blood had dropped to
between 200 and 250 people a day from between 350 and 400 people
a day previously.

Hospitals also reported a 10 percent drop in demand for plasma
for dengue patients over the past two weeks from 550 bottles to
500 a day.

Ulla said that for two months up until April, her office had
been overwhelmed by the soaring demand for blood.

The demand for fresh blood surged to 512 bags from 300 bags a
day during the first half of April.

She said her office had just received two new blood processing
machines from the government and would receive another two next
month to improve its services.

"Currently we have four machines, each producing about 300
packs of plasma a day," she said. Each pack contains 30 cc of
plasma.

Last week, PMI received a US$74,625 grant from the Japanese
government to be used to fund the national program to eradicate
dengue fever. PMI chairwoman Siti Hardijanti Rukmana received the
money from Japanese Ambassador Takao Kawakami. (ind/cst)