Govt, hospitals forge coop to control dengue

Govt, hospitals forge coop to control dengue

Dewi Santoso, Jakarta

The Ministry of Health has recently signed an agreement with the
Regional Hospitals Association (Arsada) to forge cooperation in
the handling of dengue fever -- outbreaks of which have affected
the country almost every year over the last 36 years.

With the agreement, all state-run hospitals in the regions are
obliged to provide medical facilities for dengue fever patients
and to actively participate in the nationwide anti-dengue
campaign.

Minister of Health Achmad Sujudi said here on Tuesday that the
agreement was part of the measures that the government was taking
to control annual dengue fever outbreaks.

"It (the agreement) is concrete evidence that the government
is making efforts to prevent annual outbreaks from taking place
in the future," Sujudi said during a one-day seminar on the
community's role in controlling the disease.

In February, the government placed Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam,
Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, Yogyakarta, East Java, Banten,
Bali, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, South Kalimantan
and South Sulawesi on an emergency footing due to the large
number of people infected with and dying from the disease.

The health ministry recorded 59,321 cases and 669 deaths in
the provinces during this year's outbreak. The government
disbursed Rp 500 million (US$53,191) to each province to help
eradicate the virus and designated 63 hospitals to provide free
treatment to dengue fever patients.

Sujudi said that dengue fever was in reality a disease that
could not be eradicated as it was categorized as an endemic
disease that had existed in the country for 36 years.

"We know that dengue fever will always emerge during the
period when the seasons are changing. All we can do is to control
the disease and reduce its case fatality rate (CFR), or otherwise
it will reemerge every year," he said.

According to Ministry of Health data, the dengue fever CFR
decreased to 1.5 percent in 2003 from 2.0 percent in 1999 and
41.38 percent in 1968.

Sujudi stressed the importance of taking care of the
environment people were living in as this was the most important
factor in controlling the disease.

The government has long called for public participation in
controlling dengue fever through a change in household habits,
including draining open tanks, covering bathing tanks and
receptacles containing still water, and burying used cans --
locally called the 3M measures -- to eliminate the breeding
places of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which carries the virus.