People are appealed to continue to be aware of dengue fever. The spread of disease caused by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes usually increases two to three times in January, February and March.
However, this disease is actually can be overcome it is handled quickly. By knowing this disease more early, all will have the right understanding; at least several related groups can take the right action in protecting the community from the disease.
As what has been done by dr. Tri Baskoro Unggul Saptoto, Ph.D., dr. Sunarno, and Singgih Adi Triono from Center for Tropical Diseases, Faculty of Medicine UGM. Three of them have worked hard to minimize the spread of this disease. One of them is by making simple electric tool to inhale mosquito’s larva called “Gama Kuras”.
The origin of “Gama Kuras” is to clean mosquito’s larva in bath tub or water containers etc without draining water out from the tub. This tool can be moved following targeted larva and without using chemical toxic substance, larva killer.
“The strength of “Gama Kuras” includes the electric inhalator with water re-circulation system so within 140 seconds it can catch 50 larva,” said Tri Baskoro at UGM, Thursday (17/2) explaining the use of the tool.
The invention of the simple tool certainly is good news for the public who lack of water. They can save water when cleaning mosquito’s larva. “The public certainly do not need to waste water away when draining the tub to clean larva,” he explained.
According Tri Baskoro, the making of “Gama Kuras” prototype was very simple. This tool uses aerator pump with maximum absorptive capacity, connected to a tiny-holed plastic bottle covered with cloth as filter. The larva will enter the filter trap. “Meanwhile, the water will be back to the tub so there is no water getting wasted. All local components above are assembled on a hard pipe which functions as a handle,” he said.
The Head of Entomological Medicine of the Faculty expected there will be business partners to cooperate with in simplifying the shape and produce this tool. So, the tool finally can be produced in large scale because dengue fever patients increase from year to year, particularly in vulnerable months of dengue fever from January to May.
Many regions in Indonesia which lack of water certainly need this tool because it is effective to stop the spread of the disease. “Dengue virus is spread from mother mosquito to eggs which is called transovarial, so the eggs hatched to larva has brought dengue virus. Therefore, cleaning mosquito’s larva in any places is the best way to decrease the population of mosquitoes, infector of dengue fever,” Team Leader of “Gama Kuras” Inventor concluded.