Rat Disease sends thousands to hospitals in Indonesia's Jakarta
Pastor Dale Morgan
Rat Disease sends thousands to hospitals in Indonesia's Jakarta*
23.02.2007
Waters in Indonesia's flood-hit capital have receded, but Dr. Kristiono
is busier than ever, moving from bed to bed in a cramped tent set up
outside his overcrowded hospital for patients suffering from diarrhea,
dengue fever and other waterborne illnesses.
"I've never seen anything like it," he said, pointing to a row of babies
on intravenous drips, many of them sick after their parents used tap
water infected with E. coli bacteria in their formula. "They just keep
coming in."
Seasonal downpours this month caused rivers to break their banks in
Jakarta, a sprawling metropolis of 12 million people, covering more than
half the city with black, putrid water, waist- and neck-deep in some
low-lying slum areas.
At least 97 people either drowned or were electrocuted in the capital
and neighboring Banten and West Java provinces, and 38 others have since
died of waterborne diseases with health experts warning that the numbers
are likely to climb.
Hospitals are grappling with 1,500 flood victims, and experts say there
remains a potential for an epidemic of mosquito-borne diseases now that
monsoon storms have largely stopped, because pools of water make perfect
breeding grounds.
"When it's getting quiet and you have water bodies there without lots of
movement, then the eggs start hatching," said Kroeger Axel, a dengue
research coordinator for the World Health Organization in Geneva,
adding, however, that it "is difficult to predict."
Nearly two-thirds of the flood patients citywide are suffering from
diarrhea, which unlike vector-borne diseases, strikes very quickly in
the rainy season. Some septic tanks burst during the floods,
contaminating water that has since been bottled and resold for drinking.
There have been 20 deaths so far.
Doctors and nurses made their way slowly through wards packed with
wailing babies and listless children in hardest-hit Koja Hospital, where
up until a week ago beds were lining the corridors.
After coming under fire for failing to put in place essential flood
control measures, the government provided tons of emergency relief and
set up massive air-conditioned tents outside the building.
"He started having stomach problems last weekend," Unayah said of her
6-month-old son Tamin in one of the makeshift wards. "He was hot, he was
crying. I brought him here as soon as he started having diarrhea."
"So far they've treated us very well," she said, adding that all care
and medication related to flood-related illnesses has been free. "Many
people are angry, but I feel very lucky to be here."
Estimates of those made homeless during the height of the Jakarta floods
reached more than 400,000, but almost all have returned to their homes,
some of them without electricity and tap water, especially in poor
neighborhoods.
Sporadic rains continue, and garbage mixes with dark pools on the road,
but the deluges seen in the first half of the month have largely ceased.
In recent days, doctors have reported 135 cases of the rare but
often-deadly bacterial disease leptospirosis, five of whom have died,
the AP reports.
The disease, caused by water contaminated by rat urine, often leads to
organ failure.
Marsudi, 39, who lay sleeping on a cot in the hallway in Tarakan
hospital packed with other patients, arrived Tuesday, his eyes red and
too weak to walk after four days of high fever, said internist Nazir.
"He's lucky," he said. "Earlier this week we had a patient who died. She
got here when it was already too late, the bacteria had attacked most of
her organs."