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Eight isolated at Jakarta hospital over suspected diphtheria
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A schoolboy is vaccinated by a health official. (JP/Hotli Simanjuntak)
Five children and three adults are isolated over suspected diphtheria at Sulianti Saroso Hospital in North Jakarta.
The patients are waiting for their medical assessment to find out if they are infected with the disease.
Dedet Hidayati, a pediatrician at the hospital, said some of the patients were not from Jakarta but from West Java.
“They came to the hospital in a severe condition. Some of them have complications as well, and they have not been vaccinated,” said Dedet on Friday, as quoted by kompas.com
Dedet said that, as a referral hospital, Sulianti Saroso had taken in suspected diphtheria patients almost every month since January this year.
So far, the hospital has accepted 57 diphtheria-infected patients, both from Jakarta and other areas.
The Jakarta Health Agency has called the current diphtheria outbreak in the capital an “extraordinary occurrence,” as the number of reported cases more than doubled from 17 infections and one fatality in 2016 to 25 infections with two casualties so far this year. (roi)
