Serious drives fail to curb dengue cases
JAKARTA (JP): Despite serious efforts and drives to curb dengue fever, 7,081 dengue cases were recorded in the city last year, an official said.
Aslan Lasman, the head of the city's health agency, said yesterday that the number was much higher than the estimated 3,700 to 4,000 cases.
"The estimation was made based on observations over a three- year period. But the prediction was right off," he said.
"Last year's number of cases was higher than that in 1995, when there was only 5,867 cases," Aslan said in his report to the governor.
Aslan said dengue outbreaks happened in 1992, 1994, 1995 and 1996 in the capital city. Newspapers reported that 18 people had died of dengue from January to May 1996.
Dengue is considered common in the city, with one or more cases being found in 259 out of 265 subdistricts in three consecutive years.
He said most districts in the city, except Kepulauan Seribu district, were vulnerable to dengue.
"In 1996, the number of dengue cases increased between April and June, especially in East Jakarta," Aslan said.
His office had officially asked the Ministry of Health to conduct research on dengue in East Jakarta. "We got no response," he said.
Last year, most dengue cases in the city happened in May and June, with 1,349 and 1,098 cases respectively.
"The lowest number was reported in October, with 246 cases," Aslan said.
In November and December, cases increased to 508 and 759 respectively, he said.
"In January this year, the number of dengue cases dropped to 502 and it was only 185 in February," Aslan said.
Governor Surjadi Soedirdja said Thursday the city had tried several ways to curb the deadly disease.
Fumigation in locations where the aedes aegypti mosquito is known to breed, as well as providing adequate information on how to prevent the spread of the disease were still popular.
Surjadi said dengue was a unique disease in that the aedes aegypti mosquito carrying it lays eggs in clear and stagnant water.
Those infected usually experience high fever, rash and hemorrhaging.
Aslan did not mention the number of people who died of dengue fever last year.
The city's information department had tried to block all information on the spread of the illness in fear of a drop in the number of tourists.
Asked about City Hall's effort to block such information, the Ministry of Health's Director General of Communicable Disease Control and Environmental Health Hadi M. Abednego said yesterday: "It is understandable. Maybe if City Hall could make scientific reports on the disease, there would be no problem," he told The Jakarta Post.
He said the most important step was to spread the right information of how to prevent the spread of dengue and for the public to take necessary precautions.
"Three main efforts to prevent dengue are: cleaning out any water containers at least once a week, closing all water containers and burying containers of standing water like old cans, which could be used by the mosquitoes to breed," Hadi said.
He said the efforts sound very simple, but require a change in habits.
Data at the Ministry of Health indicated that as of June 17, 1996, 43 had died of dengue fever and 3,024 others had been hospitalized. In May there were 28 deaths out of 1,880 cases, the ministry said. (ste)