Dengue fever outbreak deemed 'extraordinary'

JAKARTA (JP): The deputy governor for social welfare affairs acknowledged yesterday that this year's dengue fever outbreak was an "extraordinary incidence" which would take concerted efforts to bring under control.

Djailani said the toll from the fever, including the loss of 36 lives this year, was already worse than last year, when 10 people died and another 2,323 people were hospitalized.

Data from the City Health Office confirms that 3,233 people were hospitalized for treatment for the disease as of Monday.

"The existing hospitals and clinics are still able to handle the situation. I don't see the need to ask city-owned health centers to operate 24 hours as some people have suggested," he said.

Ninety-nine hospitals and 474 public health centers serve the city's population of about 10 million.

Several major hospitals reported yesterday they were overwhelmed by the stream of people admitted with dengue fever symptoms.

Officials at Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital in Central Jakarta and Indonesian Christian University (UKI) Hospital in East Jakarta each said they had referred three patients a day to other hospitals because there were no more beds available.

Etty S., an official at Cipto Mangunkusumo, said that many dengue fever patients had to be accommodated in rooms designated for people suffering from other illnesses.

The hospital has admitted a daily average of 16 people suffering from the disease this month, she added.

It has allocated 134 of its 1,156 rooms for these patients.

Head of UKI Hospital's medical services Mangatar Marpaung said the hospital treated 173 dengue fever sufferers since March.

Marpaung said the outbreak was expected to peak next month and the hospital would prepare more medical supplies in anticipation.

Meanwhile, city-owned Tarakan Hospital in Central Jakarta, with 150 beds, announced yesterday it was no longer able to accommodate dengue fever patients.

Head administrator Nurdjanah told the media the hospital had admitted 108 patients with the disease in the first 14 days of this month alone.

"We are forced to place new patients in any available rooms, such as the postsurgery room," she said.

Admittance records show the number of patients treated for the condition increased over the past four months.

In January, the hospital recorded 39 patients, in February 49, including two who later died, and in March 135, with four deaths.

Four of the people admitted this month have died.

Nurdjanah said these people died because they were admitted to the hospital when their illness was at a critical stage.

She said many people mistook symptoms of dengue fever for flu because they were similar, particularly the high fever.

Chief of the Central Jakarta health office, Sonny Tobing, speaking during a visit to Tarakan Hospital yesterday, said that mass fumigation operations were largely ineffective in combating the disease's spread. He said they only killed the adult aedes aegypty mosquitoes, the carrier of the dengue virus, but failed to exterminate larva living in stagnant water.

The outbreak has hit 261 of the capital's 265 subdistricts.

"Only three subdistricts in Pulau Seribu and another one in Kamal Muara are still free from dengue fever," he said. (ind/ivy)