Ministry warns of pneumonia outbreak
JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Health warned Wednesday of the danger of a pneumonia outbreak especially among children under five in the transition to the rainy season.
"Pneumonia is among top ranking diseases which have claimed many lives of children here... but people do not realize it. Other diseases such as dengue fever or diarrhea attract more attention," the ministry's director general of communicable disease control Achmad Sujudi, said.
Diarrhea, followed by pneumonia, he said are the two major causes of death among under-fives, though he could not give recent figures.
"Bad weather along with the high rate of air pollution here easily lead to children suffering from respiratory illnesses," Achmad added.
He said parents should be alert and immediately seek medical check ups if the following symptoms of pneumonia appear: Babies under two months old breathing faster than 60 times per minute; babies aged between two months and one year breathing more than 50 times per minute and children above one year old more than 40 times per minute.
"The other signs are wheezing and a continuous cough and cold. Babies who suffer from pneumonia usually draw the diaphragm deep inside when inhaling," Achmad said.
In urban areas he said children were more vulnerable to pneumonia, given the pollution.
According to the ministry's latest data, in 1996 there were 274,291 cases of pneumonia among under-fives.
"We cannot reveal the latest data yet, but in 1995 there were 150,000 Indonesian under-fives who died of pneumonia," Achmad noted.
"People, especially mothers, do not realize that pneumonia is a serious problem. Actually with proper treatment, it can be cured.
"But many parents think pneumonia symptoms are merely those of the common cold when children have trouble breathing. They only give them simple medicine suitable for cold-sufferers. Poor families buy unprescribed drugs from kiosks," Achmad noted.
A 1997 health survey by the ministry revealed that 22 percent of children under five who suffered from respiratory illnesses would be treated by their own parents or guardians, while 8 percent of such children were not taken for medical treatment and 1 percent were treated by traditional healers.
"We hope parents start taking this problem seriously," Achmad added.
Separately, the ministry of health along with other ministries announced Wednesday a plan to set up a "healthy living paradigm program" to involve families in a bid to anticipate various problems created by the prolonged crisis.
"Health here... is also related to mental, social, psychological and intelligence aspects," Minister of Health Farid Anfasa Moeloek said after a ministers' coordination meeting on poverty eradication.
"We want to start addressing the problems at the core, which is the family." Problems such as student brawls and clashes should be traced to an imbalance of the above aspects, which could be overcome by reaching out to people through families, he added.
"Hopefully with family and community rebuilding, tensions and emotional problems which lead to rioting and unrest may be reduced," Farid said, adding specific details of the scheme were not yet available. Funding was unclear yet, but he said sources did not include the safety net program. (edt)