Dengue fever claims 80 lives in Semarang

Dengue fever claims 80 lives in Semarang

Suherdjoko, The Jakarta Post, Semarang

The spread of dengue in Central Java province has reached
alarming proportions with 80 fatalities having been reported
since January this year, a senior health official said on
Tuesday.

The 80 fatalities were out of a total of 3,531 dengue cases
reported to health officials during the same period, said Central
Java provincial health office director Budihardja.

The dengue cases were spread among all regencies and
municipalities in Central Java province, with Semarang being the
city with the greatest number of dengue cases -- 1,340 with 16
fatalities.

Budihardja blamed poor sanitation as the chief cause of dengue
in the city. Sanitation in the urban area was worse than in the
countryside, according to Budihardja, pointing to piles of
uncollected garbage in the city.

"Cans and plastic waste are found all over the city, and they
provided breeding places for aedes aegepti mosquito, the carrier
of the dengue virus," said Budihardja.

The number of fatalities caused by dengue this year was,
however, much less than last year. While dengue claimed 80 lives
up to November this year, last year the disease claimed 163 lives
in the whole year. Similarly, the number of dengue cases
reportedly fell three-fold this year. While last year the number
of dengue cases numbered 9,050, as of November this year only
3,531 had been recorded.

The decrease in the number of dengue cases was attributed to
the government campaign against the disease, including a
government call to improve sanitation in the city. But, besides
the government effort, credit also needed to be given to the
people, whose awareness of dengue had increased over the past
year. Previously, people were often too late in sending ill
relatives to hospital due to a lack of knowledge about dengue
fever, thus leading to many fatalities. But, now, people were
more aware of dengue symptoms and they quickly brought ill
relatives to the hospital once they detected the symptoms of the
disease. This heightened awareness had saved many lives.

Meanwhile, Budihardja said the government had allocated Rp 1.7
billion this year to combat dengue in 9,000 subdistricts across
the province. Dengue regularly affects some 800 of the 9,000
subdistricts in the province, and it was in these 800
subdistricts that they government would focus its efforts.