Lax fumigation makes city phone to dengue

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Nine residents of Community Unit No. 5, Cisalak subdistrict in Depok, West Java, have contracted dengue fever, including one child who died after a nearby community health center failed to fumigate the area.

Community unit head Mat Yasin said he had told the community health center to fumigate the area after the first resident had come down with the disease.

"The community health center asked me to pay Rp 5,000 per house before we settled on Rp 1 million for the neighborhood. However, we couldn't raise the money so we canceled the planned fumigation," Mat Yasin was quoted by Detik.com as saying.

He said that around 300 families lived in the community unit, most of whom were low-income families.

A private foundation volunteered to fumigate the area last Friday, when seven people had already fallen ill with dengue.

On Monday, Devi Permatasari, 7, a daughter of Muhidin, died of dengue at the Pasar Rebo state hospital in East Jakarta.

Muhidin's two sons -- Asep Saefudin, 18, and Abdul Rodyid, 14 -- and his wife Komariah, 38, are still being treated for dengue fever at the Pasar Rebo hospital along with five of their neighbors.

Muhidin, who is a contract worker, lives in an area with poor sanitation.

Jakarta Health Agency spokeswoman Evy Zelvino said fumigation was supposed to be free of charge and that health centers across the capital should immediately fumigate all areas where dengue cases were found.

"It is free only when it is shown that a dengue case has occurred in the area," she told The Jakarta Post.

As the number of dengue fever cases continues to increase in the capital, several hospitals are beginning to run out of space following a flood of dengue patients over the last few days.

The city-run Budi Asih Hospital in East Jakarta received 12 dengue patients on Tuesday, bringing the total number of dengue patients in the hospital to 36, with one child, Gunawan, 5, suffering from dengue-shock syndrome.

Meanwhile, the number of dengue patients in Fatmawati Hospital, South Jakarta, has risen to 37 people so far this year, compared to 21 people over the same period last year.

The hospital said that on average they admitted six dengue patients every day.

Despite the continued increase in the number of dengue cases, Evy said that the administration had still not declared an emergency.

"We have our own criteria for declaring an emergency," she said.

The administration's policy is to declare an emergency if between 15 and 20 new cases are admitted each day to a hospital. Upon declaring an emergency, the administration will allocate special funds and take special measures, including a mass education campaign and special medication efforts, to prevent the outbreak from spreading.

Separately, Achmad Husin Alaydrus, a councillor on the City Council's public welfare commission, said that the administration should declare an emergency as many people had already died.

"Why can't the administration declare an emergency? What's wrong with that? They have the money to handle an emergency," he said.

According to data from the health agency, 10,700 people have come down with dengue and 58 people have died since January.