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Experts are calling for Indonesians to piggyback on a government campaign and take more responsibility for preventing the spread of dengue hemorrhagic fever in the disease’s most infectious month.

Haryono, the founder of the anti-dengue Pikoli Foundation, said individuals could do a great deal to help eradicate the disease.

“If the whole society, at the same time, eliminates mosquito breeding places, we can cut mosquito diseases by 70 percent,” he said. “No eggs means no larvae. No larvae means no mosquitoes.”

In 2010, after a near-death experience with dengue fever, Haryono found himself questioning health services when he was released from the hospital early.

After realizing that poor people could not afford hospital bills and that the public had little awareness of the issue, he was motivated to create the Pikoli Foundation.

“The government needs to involve society,” he said. “Many countries fail to eradicate mosquito-borne diseases because they don’t involve society.”

Experts believe it comes down to public awareness.

“People should know about dengue because this is an epidemic in Indonesia,” Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) chairman Prijo Sidipratomo said.

The anti-mosquito 3M campaign — “Mengubur, Menutup dan Menguras” (“Drain, Seal and Bury”) — has gotten lots of publicity on billboards and televisions around Indonesia, but Prijo said this was not enough to prevent one of the most deadly diseases in the country.

“The attitude of the people is not good,” he said. “Sometimes they don’t care.”

Last year 49,863 cases of dengue feer were recorded in 30 provinces in Indonesia, an incidence rate of 2,099 per 100,000 people. Yet this is a notable decrease from 2010, when there were 156,086 recorded cases in 33 provinces (6,570 per 100,000).

“In the past three years we have seen a decline in the number of dengue patients,” Jakarta Health Agency head Dien Ermawati said. “We are optimistic that we are on the right track in controlling the disease.”

There has been a decrease in dengue rates throughout the country, but as the director of animal-related diseases at the Health Ministry, Rita Kusriastuti, points out, there are still outbreaks in Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Bali, with the highest incidence on Java.

Rita said the public should be most aware of dengue when the rain stops, because a week without rain is long enough for a mosquito to lay hundreds of eggs.

“Even if we have one thousand or one million [mosquitoes], the next week we will have 10 times the amount taking human blood,” she said.

To prevent a further increase of dengue infections, areas where water might pool should be continuously checked, cleaned and dried, she added.

“We must continue to check our environment and our schools,” she said. “We are regularly checking building sites, where any kind of water can be kept.”

The Singaporean government has used mobile phone apps, e-mails and text messages to warn the public of the location of dengue outbreaks.

The Indonesian government, meanwhile, has been informing the public with the 3M campaign and the launch of Asean Dengue Day on June 15, 2011.

Haryono believes the government is on the right path and it is now the community’s turn to take the initiative.

“Now, it is our job as citizens to solve the mosquito problem,” he said. “We can’t let all the problems be solved by the government.”