REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, LEBAK -- At least three patients in Lebak District, Banten Province, have reportedly died of dengue fever since January 2016 at the Dr Adjidarmo Public Hospital in Rangasbitung, according to a local health official.
"Of the three fatalities, one was from Rangkasbitung and two others were from Serang," Dr Firman Rahmutallah, the head of Communicable Diseases Eradication and Prevention of the Lebak District Health Office, stated here on Tuesday.
Rahmutallah noted that dengue cases continued to surface in Lebak district following an increase in rainfall in the area, so the people have been reminded to remain vigilant against the outbreak of the disease.
According to the local health official, the number of dengue patients currently recorded at the Adjidarmo Hospital had reached 103 from the districts of Serang, Tangerang, and even Bogor.
Rahmutallah stated that in order to break the chain of dengue transmission, the local community had been called on to revive the tradition of mutual assistance by conducting an environmental cleanliness movement, such as burying, draining, and hoarding (3-M), in addition to eradicating the aedes aegypti mosquito's breeding grounds.
"We believe that through the environmental cleanliness movement and the eradication of mosquito breeding grounds, we can break the chain of the deadly disease," he noted.
Rahmutallah explained that most of the dengue patients lived in densely populated settlement areas such as Rangkasbitung, Cibadak, Maja, Warunggunung, Malingping, Banjarsari, Cipanas, and Kalanganyar.
Therefore, he has urged the local community to immediately rush the people affected by dengue fever to the nearby hospital and health centers.
"We hope that when someone has been suffering from fever for three days, he or she would be quickly rushed to a nearby hospital or community health center," Rahmutallah remarked.
He pointed out that as some areas of Lebak district still continued to experience rainfall, the cases of dengue fever had increased sharply compared to those recorded in the previous years.
In the meantime, Rangkasbitung's Kolelet Community Health Center spokesman Hasanah remarked that his party presently continued to involve the personnel of the Fast Moving Team (TGC) to conduct outreach in four villages in anticipation of the dengue disease.
"We continue to encourage the TGC personnel to optimize dengue prevention efforts through environment cleanliness and the eradication of the aedes aegypti mosquito's breeding grounds," Hasanah added.
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