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As Malaria Outbreaks Persist, Ministry Pledges to Eliminate the Disease in Java
Dessy Sagita | January 15, 2012

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The government has announced an ambitious plan to eradicate malaria from Java by 2015, even as the disease continues to ravage areas of the island.

“The number of malaria cases in Java has declined sharply, though there are isolated surges, such as in Kulon Progo district [in Yogyakarta] right now,” Tjandra Yoga Aditama, the Health Ministry’s director general of disease control and environmental health, said on Sunday.

“Elsewhere in the country, the mortality rate from malaria is also declining, so we’re optimistic that we can reach our target,” he added.

Tjandra attributed the decline to higher awareness among the public and increased efforts by health workers to tackle the disease through early detection. However, he acknowledged that environmental factors still led to sporadic outbreaks.

Indonesia’s varied geography makes it difficult to completely eliminate all mosquito breeding grounds, and many regions are still considered ideal breeding grounds, he said.

“That’s why all our programs, from dealing with the disease to dealing with environmental factors, must run simultaneously” he said.

In addition to ridding Java of malaria by 2015, the ministry hopes to eradicate the disease from Kalimantan and Sulawesi by 2020 and from eastern Indonesia by 2030.

However, parts of the country have been dealing with malarial outbreaks, which has since been classified as “extraordinary incidents,” since December.

In two villages in Kulon Progo, authorities have recorded 43 cases of malaria this month alone.

Tjandra said hilly terrain in the region allowed for the formation of standing pools of water, where malaria-bearing mosquitoes typically lay their larvae.

The Indonesia Malaria Care Foundation has said 107 million Indonesians live in malaria-endemic zones. The areas with the highest rates of infection are the largely underdeveloped provinces of East Nusa Tenggara, Maluku, North Maluku, Papua, West Papua and North Sumatra.

East Nusa Tenggara reported 83,100 infections in 2008, according to the ministry.

Nationwide, about 1.5 million cases of the disease are detected each year.




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