Doctors confirm dengue caused by new strain

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Doctors treating hemorrhagic fever patients confirmed on Tuesday the government's suspicion of a new sub-variant of the dengue fever virus that was responsible for the outbreak in several regions.

Chief of the environmental health unit at the West Java Health Agency, Fatimah Resmiati, said his office had discovered a case last year in Bandung in which a girl died from a flu-like illness.

A blood test conducted at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, the United States, confirmed the girl died from dengue fever, although she did not have a skin rash, which is a common symptom of dengue fever.

Earlier, a pediatrician with the city-run Budhi Asih Hospital in East Jakarta, Hot S. Hutagalung, claimed to have found two different types of the dengue fever virus in his patients.

He said the mutation of the virus had led to double infections in the patients.

The head of the East Java Health Agency, Bambang Giyatno, said preliminary examinations by a team from Dr. Soetomo General Hospital in Surabaya found the dengue fever outbreak in the province was caused by a new strain of the virus.

"The team found it was a newly mutated virus," Bambang said.

A pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases at Dr. Sardjito General Hospital in Yogyakarta, Ida Safitri, said a virus that was different from previous known forms was to blame for the current dengue fever outbreak.

"The virus may have mutated due to changes in our living patterns, including drug consumption and air pollution, causing a new virus to appear," she said.

The director general of communicable diseases at the Ministry of Health, Umar Fahmi, has warned of the spread of a more virulent strain of the dengue fever virus, which is believed to have killed dozens of people over the past two months.

He said dengue fever viruses found in the country were commonly known as second and fourth strains of the virus.

The new virus, he said, could be identified by the faster spread of the disease and the larger number of casualties it caused.

"The new virus has a casualty rate of above 1 percent, a figure never seen in previous outbreaks," Umar said on Tuesday.

East Java has been the hardest hit area, with a casualty rate reaching 3 percent, while in Jakarta the casualty rate is 1 percent.

At least 4,500 people in six provinces have been hospitalized with dengue fever since the beginning of the year, with 91 deaths as of Tuesday. The government has ordered extraordinary measures to contain the virus, including ordering hospitals to accept all patients with dengue symptoms.

Umar said the new strain of the virus caused typical dengue symptoms: skin rashes, a temperature of more than 38 degrees Celsius, headaches, severe joint pain and nausea, but the symptoms spread much faster.

"The new virus can cause a drop in the trombosite count from 200,000 to below 100,000 in one or two days, faster than the common virus," Umar told The Jakarta Post.

Benny Patuwo, head of the Tanah Abang Community Center, said several of his patients went into shock two days after the onset of dengue symptoms.

"An infusion is not enough to treat a patient who arrives in shock," he said.

To verify that the outbreak is caused by a new strain of the virus, Umar said the Ministry of Health would dispatch a team to take blood samples from patients across Jakarta.

"After the team has collected enough samples, we will do some research to determine whether a new sub-variant of the virus has caused the outbreak," Umar said.

The team will begin its work after the government disburses emergency funds.

According to recent data, 1,076 people in West Java have been infected with dengue fever, with 20 deaths, and 78 people with four deaths in East Kalimantan. Cases have also been reported in Bali and West Nusa Tenggara.

Dengue fever, transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, infects between 50 million and 100 million people worldwide each year, including many children.