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.