Local governments rely on themselves in fighting dengue

Local governments rely on themselves in fighting dengue

Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post, Pekalongan, Central Java

Rini, a student at Podosugih 1 elementary school here, answers a
question about the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that carry the dengue
fever virus.

"They breed in clean water that does not come in contact with
the ground," she says in a timid voice.

Her friend, Ardi, adds: "We use flashlights to find them, as
they like dark places."

Minister of Health Achmad Sujudi pinned jumantik (mosquito
larvae monitoring officer) badges on their chests during a
ceremony on Tuesday to mark their school's victory in this year's
school cleanliness competition in Pekalongan mayoralty.

"The presence or absence of larvae was one of the criteria
used to assess the schools," the head of the Pekalongan Health
Agency, Dwi Heri Wibawa, said.

He said students had conducted a weekly larvae inspection of
their school since the dengue fever outbreak in February.

In Pekalongan, the larvae-free rate is 86.6 percent, still
below the ideal rate of 95 percent. Although the rate is lower
than ideal, the number of dengue fever cases here has declined
from 122 in 1997 to 79 in 2000, 59 in 2003 and 14 with zero
deaths in this year's outbreak.

Nationwide, there have been 49,167 dengue infections and 558
deaths since the beginning of the year.

The students' efforts have contributed to dengue prevention in
Pekalongan, Heri said.

The provincial government has also hired three jumantik to
help the mayoralty fight dengue fever, with each officer
receiving Rp 500,000 (US$58.82) a month. The government has plans
to hire 10,000 jumantik to work for six months,

Heri said the health agency had also employed 1,429
volunteers, each earning Rp 7,500 for every 20 houses they
inspected for mosquito larvae.

"We have to use this outbreak as a momentum to intensify our
preventative and educational measures," said the director of
communicable diseases at the health ministry, Umar Fahmi Achmadi.

The ministry is preparing a presidential decree as the legal
basis for the recruitment of field workers who will assist in the
government's efforts to fight communicable diseases, including
dengue fever.

Umar said the field workers, who must be high school
graduates, will be placed in public health centers at the
district level.

"They will work according to the priority of their respective
areas, whether it is dengue, malaria or other communicable
diseases," said Umar.

The central and local governments will share the burden of
paying these workers, said Umar.

However, not all areas are taking the necessary steps to fight
dengue fever.

Health officials in the town of Batang, which neighbors
Pekalongan, said they had only two jumantik on their payroll and
were taking few steps to encourage public participation in
fighting dengue.

When questioned, the jumantik said they had monitored mosquito
larvae between July and December of last year, but now that they
were not being paid on a monthly basis, their work consisted only
of doing fumigation on request.

Confronted with this, the head of the local health agency,
Sutarno, said: "We don't have a high number of dengue fever cases
anyway."

This year, 18 people in the regency have been infected with
the virus, with one death. Last year, 108 people were infected,
with two deaths.

"It is a small area and we are lucky that we do not have
diseases," said Sutarno. "Let's just hope it stays this way."