Tourists cancel trips for fear of dengue

MEDAN, North Sumatra: Dozens of tourists from Singapore and other countries canceled their planned visits to Medan and surrounding areas on Friday, due to the dengue outbreak there.

Yasson Liem, a staff member of a travel agent in Singapore, said that tourists had also canceled trips to other Indonesian locations, including Jakarta, West Java and Central Java.

Without providing details of how many tourists had canceled their trips, he said that Singaporeans were particularly sensitive to such issues.

In Medan alone, 31 people have been infected with the disease since the beginning of the year and one person died. Last year, 16 people in Medan died from dengue fever.

But, Agus Widjaja, an official at the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore denied that the flow of tourists from the country to Indonesia was decreasing. -- Antara