Indonesia: Dengue death toll reaches 256

Laksamana.Net - This year's outbreak of dengue fever hitting Indonesia has now claimed 256 lives, while the number of people afflicted by the disease has reached 14,011, an official said Wednesday (25/2/04).

Syafei Achmad, the Health Ministry's secretary general of infectious disease prevention, was quoted by Xinhua as saying the outbreak had spread to 30 of Indonesia's 32 provinces.

Health Minister Achmad Sujudi was quoted by detikcom online news portal as saying most of the reported cases were in nine provinces: Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, East Java, East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, Yogyakarta, South Sulawesi and Bali.

In Jakarta, 4,616 people have been infected by the mosquito borne disease and 49 of them have died.

In East Java, 1,907 people were infected and 57 have died; while in West Java, 2,655 people were infected and 51 have died.

President Megawati Sukarnoputri has expressed concern over the this year's outbreak and urged the Health Ministry to take action to stem the spread of the disease.

Sujudi said the Health Ministry was ready to disburse up to Rp150 billion ($17.8 million) in emergency state budget funds.

The money will be used to conduct fumigation programs to kill the aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmit the virus, and to help pay the hospital bills of poor people infected with the disease.

Dengue fever is spread by a parasite contained in the saliva of the aedes aegypti mosquito, which can be recognized by white spots on its black legs.

There is no vaccine for the virus, which can cause severe aches and pains, skin rashes, headaches, a high fever, nosebleeds, chills and even hemorrhaging.

Indonesians are being urged to drain or cover open pools of stagnant water and containers to prevent mosquitoes from laying eggs there.

Health officials are investigating whether a new virus strain is responsible for the current outbreak.

Weaknesses

Vice President Hamzah Haz on Wednesday admitted there were weaknesses in the government's preparedness to combat the outbreak.

"We admit we have weaknesses in preventive measures against the dengue fever epidemic," he was quoted as saying by state news agency Antara.

Ideally, he said, the government should be ready with an adequate provision of "antibiotics" for the people to prevent them from being affected by the disease.

It's possible that Haz was either misquoted by Antara or given faulty information by his advisers, as antibiotics have no effect on dengue fever, which is a viral infection.