Sayeed Muhammad: Indonesia’s tourist Lombok Island is battling malaria, authorities said yesterday, declaring a health emergency after a series of earthquakes in July and August forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.
The quakes and aftershocks that killed nearly 500 people are estimated to have caused damages of $337.84 million to hospitals and public infrastructure, among other buildings, on the island’s northern coast.
Lombok is less developed than its neighboring island of Bali, the country’s top tourist destination, reports Reuters.
After the quake, aid groups said many of the hundreds of thousands left homeless were camping under the open sky as they refused to seek shelter indoors as tremors continued.
Women and children are among the 128 people found to have been infected with malaria, Rahman Sahnan Putra, the chief of the West Lombok Health Agency.
“It’s an extraordinary occurrence of malaria,” Putra said, confirming that the news of the emergency being declared.
The local government was seeking $230,000 from the central and regional governments to help fund mosquito nets, test kits and the emergency response effort, he added.
Although malaria is endemic in West Lombok, recent tests revealed a spurt in infections, another regional official said, adding, “There was a mass blood survey and the entire community was checked.”
The incident was being treated as a “standard outbreak”, said the official, accordng to him, those testing positive for the disease are treated, counseled and their surroundings sprayed with disinfectant.
Many of those infected, he said, had been living in tents after the quakes and did not get proper rest, making them more vulnerable.
However, officials fear efforts to rein in the disease will be complicated by the arrival of the rainy season next month, as malaria-carrying mosquitoes breed in pools of stagnant water.
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