DPR Member: Strengthen Vigilance Against Hantavirus with Integrated System
Prevention of hantavirus cannot rely solely on hospital services. It concerns the daily living environment of the community.
Jakarta (ANTARA) - Member of Commission IX of the Indonesian House of Representatives, Edy Wuryanto, has called on the government to strengthen early vigilance against hantavirus through an integrated health system approach (one health system).
“Prevention of hantavirus cannot rely solely on hospital services. It concerns the daily living environment of the community,” said Edy in a statement received in Jakarta on Monday.
The health sector legislator assessed that several important steps must be strengthened immediately.
Thirdly, strengthening the control of rodents (rodentia) and community-based environmental sanitation. According to him, waste management, settlement cleanliness, and rodent population control must become an important part of public health policy.
He explained that hantavirus is a disease transmitted from animals to humans (zoonosis), particularly through rodents. Transmission can occur when a person inhales air contaminated with particles of rodent urine, faeces, or saliva.
“There are still many people who clean warehouses, empty houses, or areas full of rodent droppings without protection, which can become a transmission route. This must be educated seriously,” he said.
Therefore, Edy called for public education to be expanded so that the community understands how to prevent transmission.
“We must not wait until a large surge of cases occurs before taking action. Prevention is far cheaper and far more important than handling when the situation has already worsened,” he said.
According to him, hantavirus tends to escape attention because it does not always cause a pandemic. However, certain types of hantavirus have a fairly high mortality rate, namely the Andes virus, which can cause severe respiratory distress.
“It is precisely because of its nature as a silent threat, we must not be negligent. The world has learned from the pandemic that health threats often come from things initially considered small,” Edy advised.
The latest hantavirus case has come under scrutiny following the World Health Organisation (WHO) monitoring an outbreak on the Dutch-flagged cruise ship MV Hondius, which sailed from Argentina.
The WHO statement on Tuesday (5/5) indicated that the hantavirus victims were likely infected before boarding the cruise ship. Human-to-human transmission on the ship cannot be ruled out.
The Indonesian Ministry of Health stated that it has coordinated with WHO to strengthen hantavirus screening in response to the case findings on the cruise ship sailing in the Atlantic Ocean.
“Indeed, it is still concentrated on that ship. So it has not spread anywhere yet. What we are doing is preparing so that we have the screening,” said Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin in Jakarta on Thursday (7/5).
Budi explained that screening is conducted in the form of rapid tests like during the COVID-19 pandemic or reagents used in PCR machines. For now, he said, his side is still focusing on surveillance.