Malaria relapse

Mr. Mark Rees in his letter published in The Jakarta Post on May 18 implies that my wife and I claim to have contracted malaria at the Tanjung Lesung Resort Hotel. One wonders whether such a misinterpretation was deliberate; but most emphatically I made no such claim. However, I can categorically state that we did contract malaria at Tanjung Lesung. This assertion is based on the opinion of doctors from the Asian Emergency Assistance and the fact that my wife and myself have been nowhere else over the past few months where malaria exists.

One wonders, however, why Mr. Rees is so defensive.

Mr. Rees claims that the incidence of malaria within the hotel complex is "less than 0.09 percent Annual Parasite Index". Thus, there is a risk, albeit it minimal. Yet, paradoxically, he states that it is impossible to contract malaria in the hotel complex, which is sprayed daily. What then is the risk if one dares to venture outside the hotel complex?

Mr. Rees states that "Dr. Soesilo guarantees that since the hotel opened there have been no cases of malaria and neither are there ever expected to be". Surely, if cases of locally contracted malaria are flatly denied without any investigations being made, as mine has been, Dr. Soesilo and Mr. Rees are unlikely ever to acknowledge the presence of malaria no matter how prevalent it may be.

Mr. Rees correctly asserts that people are the main carriers of malaria, but he wrongly implies that locals do not live within a five-kilometer radius of the hotel. In fact there are numerous huts near paddy fields less than two kilometers from the hotel and still within PT Banten West Java's development area. Does Dr. Soesilo test the occupants of these huts for malaria? How exhaustive are his tests in any case, as finding infected blood cells can be a very time consuming task? Furthermore and interestingly, Mr. Rees did not refute my claim that even members of the hotel's staff had died from malaria.

In order to resolve this matter and assure the public, I challenge Mr. Rees to commission an entirely independent study of the area and publish the results openly. This could perhaps be done with the help of the World Health Organization and would establish just how high is the true incidence of malaria in the area. I would be very willing to provide such a study with my own clear evidence of the presence of malaria.

FRANK RICHARDSON

Jakarta