Anti-mosquito campaign battles to keep dengue fever down

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Sat, 01/27/2007 3:50 PM | Jakarta

Emmy Fitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In her late 40s, Nur Aini exhibits an abundance of energy in tending to her neighbors in Baru subdistrict, East Jakarta, day after day. She constantly reminds her fellow housewives to clean their bath tubs and bury any used containers in which mosquitoes may breed.

Accompanied by health officials, she supervises the anti-mosquito campaign, known locally as Pemberantasan Sarang Nyamuk (PSN), every Friday.

Governor Sutiyoso launched the PSN campaign in 2004, in a bid to prevent an outbreak of dengue fever in the capital.

For the campaign to succeed, it must ideally involve a combination of wailing ambulances, mosque drums and school and church bells to alert residents to take part in the clean-up drive each Friday between 9:00-9:30 a.m.

During the 30-minute period, Jakartans undertake three steps to exterminate mosquitoes. These involve the disposing of still water, covering water tanks and burying or disposing of used bottles and cans.

Nur received training from Jakarta's Health Agency. She volunteered to educate her neighbors on how to properly clean bath tubs and treat any non-organic waste that may house mosquitoes.

""I love to socialize and teach, that's why I made myself available for this duty,"" she said giggling, while sharing her childhood dream of becoming a teacher.

""It's an easy, but also difficult job because people listen to me and appear to be willing to do the cleaning regularly, but don't understand that we will have to do it again and again,"" she said.

Widyastuti, a campaign official in Baru subdistrict, said the hard work of volunteers like Nur Aini paid off. Although the area was listed as a dengue fever ""red zone"", she said, there were yet to be any reported cases of the disease in the subdistrict.

""We believe it takes time to make people voluntarily develop a hygienic habit of cleaning up their environment. It's for their own sake,"" she said.

""But we don't blame residents for recurring cases of dengue as it's our job to keep reminding them of what they must do.""

Identical standards of hygiene are being maintained by officials in other Jakarta subdistricts in the hope of making people care more for the environment in which they live.

Officials also impart basic knowledge to help residents identify the dengue fever-carrying Aedes Aegypty mosquito and symptoms of the disease.

Suharyati, an official based in Grogol Utara, South Jakarta, said in addition to the PSN campaign held Fridays, the subdistrict's administration also encouraged residents to work together each Sunday to clean their surroundings.

West Jakarta's Palmerah subdistrict administration has also taken to carrying out a clean-up drive Fridays.

""Residents here are aware of the 30-minute cleanup on Fridays, so we don't have to use a siren or mosque drums to alert people,"" said Edi, the subdistrict's deputy head.

So far, there have been no reported cases of dengue in either Palmerah or Grogol Utara.

Meanwhile, Ubaydillah, secretary for Kemanggisan, West Jakarta, said even though the subdistrict's administration had notified residents of the need to clean their surroundings, there were still many who remained uneducated of the dangers of dengue fever.

""If the family member of someone they knew caught dengue, the residents come to us and ask for their homes to be fumigated,"" he said.

On Friday there were 1,482 people hospitalized with dengue fever in Jakarta. This figure increased 16 percent from Thursday, when 1,240 were receiving treatment for the disease. There have been six dengue-related deaths so far.

However, cases have decreased by 41.5 percent when compared with last year, in which there had been 2,535 reported cases. (04)

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