Dengue fever is still endemic in Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta Health Agency released data saying that in 2016 there were 1,706 cases with 13 fatalities, while until the third week of January 2017 the case amounted to 53. The condition has driven the Eliminate Dengue Project (EDP) Yogya team to find innovations for controlling dengue fever through distribution of Aedes aegypti mosquito that contains Wolbachia bacteria.
"Last year we made research in 6 districts of Yogyakarta and in 2017 we would extend the coverage of mosquito distribution to 24 clusters around Yogyakarta," said main researcher of EDP Yogya, Prof. Adi Utarini, Tuesday (24/1).
EDP Yogya is a research project carried out by Centre for Tropical Medicine of Faculty of Medicine UGM that is funded by Yayasan Tahija that develops natural method to minimise dengue fever case using Wolbachia bacteria. Research proved that the bacteria are able to inhibit the spread of dengue fever virus in Aedes aegypti mosquito.
This time EDP Yogya plans to distribute as many as 8,000 buckets containing 100-120 mosquito eggs with Wolbachia. EDP Yogya uses two areas for intervention and comparison study. The choice of areas will be done randomly in front of representatives from the participating sub-districts on Wednesday (25/1) in the City Hall. Adi hoped the people engagement would boost their participation for dengue fever controls.
“Sample selection during research generally is randomly done by researcher team. For the EDP, we would wish the involvement of the residents because their participation is important,” she said.
The research programme in the Province of Yogyakarta Special Region since 2014 is responded well by the Yogyakarta Health Agency that also campaigns for dengue fever controls.
“We do support this research remembering that the case of dengue fever in Yogya is still worrying,” said Head of Health Agency of Yogyakarta, drg. Fita Yulia Kiswororini.
She explained the data in 2016 that the dengue fever has been found in each district of Yogyakarta city, hence, she expected the residents that have been distributed with Wolbachia-mosquito to be committed until the end of research, thus bringing positive results.
“We hope the research will turn out well with visible results. Through this project, we are trying to start from Yogya for Indonesia to help eradicate the threats of dengue fever,” she concluded.