Districts to get more to fight dengue

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Starting next year, district administrations in Jakarta will be playing a greater role in the fight against dengue, which kills dozens of Jakarta people every year.

The City Council's health commission approved an allocation of Rp 200 million (US$20,000) for each of the 44 districts in next year's budget over the weekend.

Commission chairman Dani Anwar said that the money would be distributed to the community health center in each district so that they could take immediate action to curb the spread of the fatal disease.

"With the allocation of this money next year, we hope that the community health centers will be able to act quickly to prevent the spread of the disease," he said after deliberations on the budget with officials from the Jakarta Health Agency.

"The main activities to be paid for with the money are fumigation and the provision of abate powder," added Dani, a councillor from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).

In its budget estimates, the city administration proposes to allocate Rp 800 billion for the health sector in 2006 compared to Rp 600 billion this year.

The health agency proposed the allocation of Rp 200 billion for the provision of health services to the poor, free treatment for dengue fever patients, the renovation of buildings and routine spending.

Currently, the city is encouraging people to spend 30 minutes eliminating mosquito breeding places every Friday from 9 a.m. to 9.30 a.m. However, there has been a meager public response to date.

According to Dani, the Rp 200 million for community health centers in each district was not the only money being allocated to fight dengue fever in the capital as each subdistrict also received funding for its own health programs.

He was referring to the Rp 1.7 billion distributed to each subdistrict for the provision of better public services, including measures to curb the spread of contagious diseases such as bird flu and dengue fever.