Knock! Knock! 'Jumantik' is here

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

From next week one of your neighbors may knock on your door and show you a glass jar containing mosquito larvae.

When this happens, you know they have been recruited by the city administration as a jumantik (mosquito larvae monitoring officer).

"The jumantik is assigned to inform residents of the danger of dengue fever and tell them about how to prevent the outbreak. The most important measure was to clean up still-water areas -- the mosquitoes breeding ground," Minister of Health Achmad Suyudi said at City Hall on Wednesday.

Suyudi and Governor Sutiyoso briefed representatives of 267 subdistricts on the administration's dengue policy.

About 800 jumantik will be on duty in communities around Jakarta to curb the rapidly spreading fever. The recruits will sign a one-year contract and get a monthly salary of Rp 750,000 (US$89).

Sutiyoso said recruiting the officers was the next step.

"However, public support is strongly needed in combating the outbreak, otherwise our personnel will fail to communicate the important information to the residents," he said.

It is impossible to vaccinate people against dengue.

"The only choice we have is to eradicate the carrier of the dengue virus, the aedes aegypti mosquitoes, especially by focusing on killing the mosquito larvae," he said.

Fumigating areas would not be enough to curb the outbreak because it only killed adult mosquitoes.