Newborns with gonorrhea common in Bitung city
Jongker Rumthe, The Jakarta Post, Manado
The two-week-old baby girl looked content while being cradled in her mother's arms waiting for their turn to see the doctor. Once in a while, the mother would look at her daughter's swollen, mucus-filled eyes.
The mother patiently awaited the doctor's call on Friday. When her name was called out by a medical worker in the West Bitung community health center, she entered the surgery and immediately showed the doctor her child's swollen eyes.
"The swelling has gone down and there is much less mucus. Thanks for the medicine and ointment you prescribed, doctor," said the mother, Zakia Amir, 30, the wife of an ojek (motorcycle taxi driver).
She appeared shy and refused to speak to reporters who tried to talk to her.
Her baby is one of 15 newborns who have contracted gonorrhea from their parents in West Bitung.
This has caused an uproar in North Sulawesi and prompted the Bitung municipality to urge all expecting mothers in the port city to have themselves examined.
The fact that the number of infected babies reached 15 in a week is regarded as being particularly worrying.
Babies born with gonorrhea have been recorded in a number of health centers in the city, such as West Bitung and Aer Tembaga. Bitung is about 40 kilometers from Manado, the capital of North Sulawesi.
Head of the West Bitung community health center, Dr. Arthur Lawalata, said that the number of babies born with gonorrhea, which usually affects the eyes of newborns, had increased significantly -- even more so than other STDs -- since last year.
In spite of this, many expectant mothers are reluctant to seek an examination at a health center as this could cause problems with their husbands.
Bitung Health Office director Dr. Dirk Lengkong said that 25 of the 60 babies born between August of last year and January of this year had been infected with the disease. "We discovered 15 such cases in the past week. As a whole, 25 out of 60 babies whose births were recorded in health centers over the past six months throughout Bitung have been infected with the disease. This does not take into account babies born at home," Lengkong told The Jakarta Post in Bitung on Friday.
He explained that the outbreak had first been noticed last December, when around 40 percent of newborns were found to have been infected by the disease.
The rising trend in STD infections in 2005 was worrying, said Lengkong.
"STD sufferers are vulnerable to HIV. They are currently being examined to find out whether they have also been infected by HIV," said Lengkong.
Babies usually start showing signs of gonorrhea infection between two and four days after being born.
"We have informed the public that infected babies must be immediately taken to a health center to be treated as the disease can cause blindness or even be fatal," said Lengkong.
The Bitung Health Office has been distributing drops containing an antibiotic, which are effective in curing babies within a few days, said Lengkong.
But this alone will not solve the problem if the parents of the infants refuse to get themselves examined and treated. They also need to desist from high-risk sex.
Data from the health office shows that the fathers of the infected babies are generally ojek drivers and laborers working in the Bitung port. The two most common STDs detected in Bitung, the largest port in North Sulawesi, are syphilis and gonorrhea.
North Sulawesi province is ranked sixth in Indonesia in terms of the number of people with HIV/AIDS. There are currently 56 people with HIV/AIDS out of the two million inhabitants of the province.
"The spread of STDs and HIV/AIDS in North Sulawesi has been very rapid due to the fact that many sex workers working outside the province return here with the diseases.
"It is high time for integrated counseling programs for sex workers both here and in other places," said the head of the disease surveillance and eradication division of the North Sulawesi Health Office, Dr. Boy George.