Schools dig deep into pockets to fight dengue
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Spending 15 minutes to sweep classrooms and schoolyards, cleaning toilets before classes start every Friday morning, is not a burden for students of State Junior High School 103 in Cijantung, East Jakarta.
"The school has been encouraging us to do these activities since December 2004 to make the PSN (the city's campaign against dengue) a success. It is okay with us, but it makes us a little bit tired," third grader Pudi told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
The city administration has declared 84 subdistricts in the capital as dengue-infected areas, including Cijantung, Cawang and Lubang Buaya in East Jakarta, Karet Tengsin in Central Jakarta, Rawa Badak in North Jakarta, and Cilandak in South Jakarta.
To contain the fever, which has infected some 1,700 people and claimed 17 lives, the city administration appealed to the public to clean bathroom water tubs once a week, cover water containers, and bury any unused items that could hold water.
The administration has also enlisted the services of hundreds of nursing students from 40 medical and nursing schools in the capital to take part in awareness campaigns.
To help dengue patients, the city administration has set aside Rp 1.5 billion to pay medical bills incurred in third-class-wards of 17 public hospitals and 58 non-government hospitals, conducted simultaneous blanket fumigation, and run campaigns to raise people's awareness of the dangers of dengue fever.
Pudi said they also sprayed insecticide in their classrooms.
"This is the first time the school has done this. Last year, when a similar outbreak occurred, we weren't told to do the clean-ups. The school was only fumigated," she added.
The school's deputy headmaster Dachri Suraatmadja said since the beginning of this year's outbreak, no health official from the district or subdistrict has come to fumigate the school area.
"No official has come to fumigate the school or inform of the action needed to contain the outbreak, but we were ordered by Governor Sutiyoso to allocate some funds for the anti-dengue campaign," said Dachri.
"We have spent around Rp 6 million of the Rp 22,500,000 allocated to the school's health unit, and it has only been four Fridays," the school's treasurer Kusnadi told the Post.
The funds were used to cover operational costs of the anti- dengue campaign, including buying insecticide sprays and cleaning supplies.
A health teacher at a state elementary school in Baru subdistrict in Pasar Rebo, East Jakarta, also said that the school has taken funds from the health unit budget to cover the cost of cleaning operations and educating the students about the dangers of dengue fever.
The teacher said that teaching elementary school students about dengue and how to prevent it was not easy, especially to first, second and third graders.
"We have to use audiovisual aids to help the students understand," he said. (001)