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On Dengue Day, Capital Raises Awareness of Deadly Disease
Dofa Fasila | June 12, 2011

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The Jakarta administration marked the inaugural Asean Dengue Day on Sunday with a mass meeting to teach the public about ways to prevent the deadly mosquito-borne disease.

The event, held at the National Monument Park (Monas), involved 1,600 community trainers teaching visitors about the various prevention methods.

Ahmad Harjadi, the city deputy for spatial planning and the environment, said it was important for all residents to be involved in tackling the spread of dengue fever in their own communities.

“I need to highlight that all residents must become community trainers in their own homes, neighborhoods and surroundings,” he said, adding that this was necessary in light of the fact that Jakarta ranked second to Bali nationwide in terms of the proportion of the population that had contracted the disease.

There were a total of 18,000 reported cases of dengue fever in the capital in 2010, according to the Health Ministry, giving it an incidence rate of 202.4 per 100,000 population. This is significantly higher than the government-set target of 150 per 100,000.

Ahmad said this high incidence rate was part of what had prompted authorities in Southeast Asia to launch an Asean Dengue Day.

According to the WHO, Indonesia accounted for 57 percent of all dengue cases in the region in 2006, including almost 70 percent of deaths from the disease.

Ahmad said the Jakarta administration had since 2004 stressed the need for preventive action by residents, encouraging them to carry out weekly programs to clean out places where mosquitoes bred.

He said this Mosquito Larvae Eradication (PSN) program was meant to put the emphasis on prevention of the disease, as well as get residents to participate in the fight.

The administration says that in the time since the PSN program was launched, cases of dengue have gone down significantly in the city. Between 2007 and 2010, the number of cases dropped from 31,000 to 18,000, while the fatalities from the disease also went down during the same period, from 87 to 33.

Ahmad said the figures so far this year also pointed to a downward trend.

In the first three months of 2011, there have been 2,950 reported dengue cases, an incidence of just 11 per 100,000 people. There have been no recorded deaths this year.

In addition to preventive measures, the administration has also taken steps to prioritize treatment of the disease, including ordering 17 hospitals across the city to provide free third-class rooms to dengue patients.