Dengue breaks out in Java again

The on-going rainy season in Indonesia is accompanied by the outbreak of the "annual" dengue fever with Java being hit most where tens of patients have died of the aedes aegypti virus since last January.

Health officials said the number of dengue fever sufferers would continue to increase until March, though it was unlikely to match that of 2005 when almost 40,000 people in the country were affected and over 540 of them died of the mosquito bites.

In Central Java alone, at least 37 people died of dengue fever last month. According to the record of the Central Java provincial administration, there were 2,347 cases of dengue fever in January 2008.

"But this figure shows a decrease compared with that of the same period last year when it stood at 2,518 cases with 62 fatalities," Hartanto, the head of the Central Java health service, said here over the weekend.