Dengue fever is striking Bali with a vengeance this year as over 40 deaths from the viral disease have been reported on the island from the beginning of 2016.
Unfortunately for tourists, mosquito breeding seriously needs to be curbed in popular traveler destinations including Badung and Gianyar, health authorities say.
“The increase in those areas are quite sharp … The one in Gianyar (near Ubud) especially, the incident is quite high,” Wayan Pujana from the Bali Health Office told AAP on Wednesday.
But at least on the bright side, dengue numbers in the city of Denpasar seem to be dropping.
Recently released statistics show the number of dengue cases in Bali from January to April this year at 7,794 is getting close to 10,700, the total number of cases across Bali in all of 2015.
Meanwhile, in terms of the dengue death count, from January to April 2016, 38 people died in Bali from dengue, while 29 died in 2015 over the entire 12-month period.
Pujana says this could in part be explained by the odd timing of wet and dry seasons.
“If in the whole year there’s rain with intermission of dry season, that’s the most favorable condition for vector breeding.”
Other possible explanations for the rise in dengue cases this year may include the increased mobility populations crossing from densely populated Java and the destruction of Bali’s rice paddy fields for housing, Pujana said.
We will just have to see how the rest of the year goes, because things were looking so reasurring in the beginning of 2016 when Bali’s Provincial Health Office said that dengue cases were down in January and February earlier this year. That’s probably just further supporting evidence of how a late and unpredicatable rainy season has screwed with this year’s data.
Reader Interactions