Dengue fever still poses threats to world communities, including Indonesia. Currently, Indonesia ranks second after Brazil with the highest number of dengue fever cases.
In the Province of Yogyakarta Special Region, dengue fever case remains high. It is endemic here. This has driven the Eliminate Dengue Project (EDP) Yogya team to continue developing the control method of the disease through the distribution of Aedes aegypti mosquito that is injected with Wolbachia bacteria.
Researcher from EDP, dr. Riris Andono Ahmad, MPH., Ph.D., mentioned since 2016 to 2017, the EDP had distributed 7,000 buckets containing the eggs of mosquito with Wolbachia to 7 districts in Tegal Rejo and Wirobrajan. In 2014 the team distributed them to villages in Sleman and Bantul.
“Currently, the first phase of distribution has ended but we will continue until 2019. Previous results showed the mosquito can survive in a high rate of population and this remains consistent,” she said on Friday (16/6) in a press conference in Fortakgama room at UGM.
“We continue to monitor if there is a decrease in the dengue fever prevalence until end of 2019. The results are expected to prove it to the government so as to be made a national policy for dengue fever controls,” she said.
Coordinator for Disease Control in Yogyakarta Health Agency, Trisno Agung Wibowo, said dengue fever was still endemic in Yogyakarta. Prevalence increased in the past five years. In 2010 there were 5,121 cases, increasing to 6,318 in 2016.
But there was a decrease in 2017. Until April 2017 there were 332 cases while there were 444 cases until April 2016,” he explained.
Despite this decrease, he called on people to keep alerted against the disease as Yogyakarta is still endemic.
“The people still need to do eradication of mosquite hotbeds through 3M,” he said.
On the efforts made by the EDP UGM team, Trisno hoped those would impact positively on the prevention of dengue fever in Yogyakarta.
“Hopefully, this will contribute to the reduction of dengue fever in Yogyakarta,” he said.