While residents in Greater Jakarta have to endure the suffocating smell of insecticide spray or fogging, which has intensified with the dengue fever alert period this rainy season, those living in Marunda subdistrict, Cilincing district in North Jakarta, can live in peace as they have taken preventive measures the natural way.

Before the dengue fever alert period hit Jakarta in February, residents in Marunda subdistrict planted 2,000 lavender plants and placed chopped lemongrass in different corners of their homes to get rid of mosquito larvae.

They learned from the internet that lavender and lemongrass can ward off mosquitoes, and small fish could prevent their larvae from breeding.

Marunda subdistrict head Hilda Damayanti said the residents deliberately took home preventive measures a month ahead of the alert period to avoid fogging as insecticide spraying was usually conducted only after a dengue case had been confirmed in an area.

“Marunda residents want to be free from chemicals that will damage our organs. We aim to shift […] from chemicals to herbs,” Hilda told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

As of late January, 37 of Jakarta’s 370 dengue fever cases had occurred in North Jakarta, but none had been recorded in Marunda according to Hilda, which is why they do not feel the need to carry out fogging at present.

The Health Ministry has recorded almost 14,000 cases of dengue fever nationwide, with 132 people having died from the mosquito-borne disease.

Besides lavender and lemongrass, Hilda also suggested that residents keep cupang (betta fish) and mujair (tilapia) in their ponds, as she learned from books and websites that these fish eat mosquito larvae.

“Our next plan is to raise awareness of home dengue prevention among students in schools so they can deliver the message to their parents,” she said.

A South Jakarta-based betta fish farmer, Asep Syarifuddin, who started his business in 1973, said public awareness of using betta fish as a means to prevent dengue fever was getting better, given his experience of donating 6,000 fish per week to Kepulauan Seribu residents in the 1990s.

“There’s not such a big demand anymore in Jakarta as a result of increasing public awareness,” he claimed. “That’s good because prevention is always better than treatment,” Asep said.

Home prevention can also be done through natural products sold in the market. Tina Novita, 26, a housewife living in an apartment in Pancoran, South Jakarta, has been using a lemongrass-based liquid to mop her floor for two years to prevent mosquitoes and other insects nesting in the house’s corners as she learned through websites.

“I bought it at a market in South Tangerang for Rp 25,000 [US$1.78] per liter. It’s a cheap and effective way to prevent mosquitoes,” she said.

The Depok administration in West Java has opted to initiate a mosquito breeding site eradication movement in 11 subdistricts in the city in an attempt to eliminate breeding sites of dengue-causing mosquitoes.

Depok Major Mohammad Idris said he believed intensified spraying of insecticide was ineffective in killing virus-transmitting mosquitoes and their larvae because it only attacked adult mosquitoes.

“Residents believe that fogging is effective, but it actually only intoxicates mosquitoes,” Idris said as quoted by tempo.co.

However, Budi Haryanto, a climate change and environmental health researcher at the University of Indonesia, begged to differ, saying that fogging was the best solution for areas with dengue cases, as it could eradicate adult mosquitoes even though it would not kill the larvae.

“Proper home prevention and fogging would be effective, but both of them need to be done according to the proper procedure,” he said.

He added that fogging had long been done improperly because of a lack of awareness, as well as homeowners’ reluctance to allow workers to spray inside their houses. (ggq)

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