More elephantiasis cases found
Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang
With her hugely swollen left leg, moving around the house is painful for Toti, 23, a housewife living in Kunciran Induk in Pinang, Tangerang city.
Contracting elephantiasis eight years ago, Toti has taken all the medical treatment she can afford to try to bring the disfiguring swelling in her limb down.
"I took various kinds of colorful pills given by the doctors at the public health center ... I even went to Sitanala Leprosy Hospital and consumed all the medicines they gave me. They just didn't work, so I quit the medicine and have left it up to God," she told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
Toti recalled the first days after she contracted the debilitating disease, caused by tiny worm infestations spread by the bite of mosquitoes.
"I felt cold, but I sweated a lot ... (the fever) started at night when it was raining," she said.
The following days, red marks covered her leg. The dots got bigger as the leg began to swell. Toti began to wear pants to hide her leg.
Toti is not the only one in the area who has to live with a permanent disfigurement. Five other people in the subdistrict, which is located some three kilometers south of the Soekarno- Hatta International Airport, also suffer from elephantiasis.
An integrated health post (Posyandu) worker, Imas, first found Toti, Simpen, 60, Masih, 30, Onih, 40, Nasih, 40, and Minah, 32, all of whom, like Toti, were living at home, having quit taking medication that didn't work.
Tangerang health agency head Nuriman Mahjudin said that 11 other people with elephantiasis had been found this year in the Kreo, Cileduk, Sewan, Neglasari, Gombor and Periuk subdistricts bordering Tangerang city and regency.
While the parasites could be killed, the deformation they created was generally permanent, he said. Plastic surgery was the only way to treat the swollen feet, a procedure that was limited in its effectiveness and which most of the sufferers could not afford.
Separately, head of contagious disease eradication at the agency, Lisa Puspa Dewi, said that the agency had recently examined the blood samples of several people with elephantiasis, mostly in their legs.
The thread-like, parasitic filarial worms Wuchereria bancrofti and Brugia malayi that cause lymphatic filariasis or elephantiasis are transmitted by infected mosquitoes that bite humans.
According to a World Health Organization (WHO) fact sheet in November 2000, that year? more than 120 million people worldwide were affected by elephantiasis, 40 million who were permanently debilitated. The report said the prevalence of the infections were continuing to increase due to the rapid and unplanned growth of cities, with building areas creating breeding sites for the mosquitoes that transmit the disease.
Lisa said the regional health agency had now formed a medical team to hold door-to-door checks to detect sufferers early on and educate the public on how to avoid the disease.
"We will also hold a big treatment clinic for the sufferers from August to September ... We have started to collect data about residents who have contracted the disease, going from subdistrict to subdistrict here."
She said several of the elephantiasis sufferers from Cileduk, Neglasari and Periuk had earlier been treated at Tangerang Hospital.
"We have killed the parasite, but returning their legs to their normal size is difficult because cosmetic surgery can only mend 30 percent of an elephantiasis leg."