S'pore goes all out to fight disease

As the Jakarta administration, as well as the nation, struggles to contain the bird flu outbreak that has killed at least five people in Greater Jakarta and infected others, learning about how neighboring city-state Singapore deals with epidemic disease is worth looking at. In this third article, The Jakarta Post's Damar Harsanto observes the issue during a visit to the city last week at the invitation of the Far East Organization Singapore Pte. Ltd.

It's not for nothing that city-state Singapore has cleanliness and orderliness as its middle name.

Without such a reputation, the government may not have been able to curb the recent dengue fever outbreak that claimed eight people and infected more than 100 Singaporeans per day, or over 10,200 people this year, mostly younger residents.

The outbreak, referred to by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as a "worrying" situation, has surpassed last year's total figure of only 9,459 cases across a country with a population of 4.2 million.

Although officials there -- just like Indonesian officials -- failed to act swiftly to residents' reports of mosquito breeding sites, the officials, fortunately, were quick to realize their mistake.

Yaacob Ibrahim, the minister in charge of a high-level committee on dengue, apologized for those incidents and gave an order to relevant authorities to break into properties to look for hotspots of mosquito breeding.

Comparing the crisis to 2003's outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that killed 33 people, PM Lee stressed the need to get people involved in the battle against the outbreak and "to take the threat seriously".

"It is hard to understand because in the past, Singapore has had a very sophisticated dengue surveillance and prevention system," said Kevin Palmer, a dengue expert with the World Health Organization (WHO) regional office in Manila was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse.

"Singapore is a place where dengue should not be a problem, but it is, and there must be an explanation why we are seeing such a big rise in cases this year," he said.

In the years past, it has been construction sites that have become mosquito breeding grounds. Now, private residences have been identified as the culprits.

The government says that residents with mosquito larvae growing in their homes could face fines of between S$10 and $100.

On Sundays, hundreds of grassroots leaders and volunteers scoured places suspected to be mosquito breeding grounds across the city as part of house-to-house checks aimed at curbing the outbreak.

"In the short term, we hope to reduce the Aedes aegypti mosquito to a low level," senior parliamentary secretary Koo Tsai Kee said.

Seven hundred staff from the Civil Defense Force, members of parliament and others were also involved in sweeping four areas that have been the worst hit by the outbreak.

The government also distributed flyers detailing measures to prevent mosquito breeding.

The National Environment Agency (NEA), a government institution in charge of overseeing environmental problems, has opened two 24-hour tip-off hotlines -- for both English and non- English speakers -- to report potential and actual mosquito breeding sites.

Callers and those who send e-mails are encouraged to give their names, contact numbers and the location and description of mosquito breeding areas or potential breeding sites. They can remain anonymous if they wish, the NEA said.

Since the first action was launched last Tuesday, some 1,000 calls have been logged each day, three times the usual number the NEA gets on its general hotline.

All residents have been urged to remove water in pot plant plates where mosquitoes like to breed. Residents of housing blocks have been told to avoid placing potted plants over drains.

The health ministry is drawing on advice from an international team of scientists and spending $30 million (US$18 million) on the eradication drive.

The government has also told hospitals to suspend non- emergency surgery to cope with the large number of dengue patients.

WHO officials say dengue has infected more than 100,000 people this year in Southeast Asia. An outbreak in Timor spread rapidly to Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Singapore. Indonesia has been the worst hit.