Dengue fever cases reported

JAKARTA: The Jakarta's Crisis Monitoring Center announced on Friday that there have been 287 cases of dengue fever in the capital, with the highest number in the Palmerah subdistrict, where there have been 20 reported cases since Jan 2.

The elderly and others over 46 years old, suffered the most with 192 cases, health officials said.

The rest of the incidents of the illness were spread out among different age groups, with 57 cases for people between the ages of 15 and 45 years old, and 27 cases for youngsters aged six to 14; in addition, there were 11 reports of the disease in children between one to five years old.

The center also recorded a total of 2,363 cases of diarrhea, which affected mostly toddlers, with 1,432 recorded instances.

As many as 522 infants less than one-year-old were struck with diarrhea.

Both illnesses were triggered by the massive floods that hit Jakarta beginning on Jan. 28. The water still has yet to recede in several parts of the city.

Abdul Cholik Masulili, chief of the City Health Agency, said that certain parts of Jakarta were swamped with clean water which created many places where Aedes aegypti, a type of mosquito known to carry dengue fever, can breed.

"We have urged communities to eradicate areas where mosquitoes can be found," he said.

The eradication efforts included cleaning and closing clean water reservoirs and burying unused cans.

The agency also called on people to spread powdered insecticide to kill mosquito eggs. -- Antara