Malaria cases sharply increase nationwide

Malaria cases sharply increase nationwide

Agus Maryono, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Malaria cases have been on the rise since 1998, and have so far
occurred in 13 provinces, 16 districts and 106 villages
throughout the country, a senior ministry of health official
said on Friday.

Director General of Communicable Disease Eradication and
Environmental Health Umar Fahmi Achmadi said the disease had
struck 15 million Indonesians.

"The number of malaria cases has sharply increased in the past
three years," he said, adding that acute malaria outbreaks went
up from 18 to 48 in the Bali-Java region since 1998.

Umar revealed that there were several factors behind the
prevalence of malaria in recent years.

"The malaria outbreaks are being attributed to environmental
issues, caused by bad management of shrimp ponds, illegal sand
exploration and illegal mangrove logging," he said.

Population mobility also contributed, he said.

"People, from malaria-free areas, come to the infected areas,
and this adds the number of people infected with the disease in
the areas," he said.

Aside from those two factors, there was also another factor
namely the climate change. He said that the rainy season, which
is the "high" season for malaria, was longer than the dry season
this year.

Authorities have pledged to carry out mosquito abatement in
some affected areas, which comprises 15,000 households, later
this month.