Upset public still demand fumigation to zap dengue

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The deadly dengue fever outbreak has led to a conflict between residents and the city administration over the necessity of fumigation.

While experts have repeatedly said that fumigation is not the best way to deal with dengue, residents continue to demand the administration fumigate their neighborhoods.

"City officials have never fumigated my house. I think that is why my son is infected with dengue," said Yuli, whose 3-year-old son is being treated at the city-run Budhi Asih Hospital in East Jakarta.

Her comment was endorsed by other parents sitting with their children in the hospital ward.

The director general of communicable diseases at the Ministry of Health, Umar Fahmi, has repeatedly said fumigation is not effective in fighting dengue because it only kills adult mosquitoes, not their larvae.

He emphasized the importance of 3M -- draining open tanks, covering clean water and burying or disposing of used cans, which are breeding locations for the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes the spread dengue.

But the health minister, Ahmad Sujudi, earlier announced the ministry had spent Rp 6 billion (US$714,286) to purchase insecticides for fumigation.

The Jakarta Health Agency has also spent much of its Rp 500 million dengue emergency fund from the ministry on the purchase of spraying equipment.

Agency spokeswoman Evy Zelfino, however, said there was not enough money to fumigate all of the neighborhoods in the capital.

"Due to limited funds, we will only be able to fumigate those areas that are most likely to be breeding places for the mosquitoes," she said, adding that the priority was being placed on poorer neighborhoods.

Legal Aid Foundation for Health chairman Iskandar Sitorus criticized the administration's slow reaction to the dengue fever outbreak.

Although the administration has employed 800 mosquito larvae monitoring officers to inform residents about the dangers of danger and how to prevent the disease, the number of infected people continues to rise.

According to the health agency, the number of dengue patients in hospitals has reached 3,541 since early this year, with 939 more people admitted on Thursday. The number of fatalities has reached 59.

Some patients are being treated in hospital corridors because of overcrowding.

Umar stressed that as long as public awareness of the importance of proper sanitation remained low, the disease would continue to infect people year after year.