Anticipating Acute Hepatitis, Sleman Health Office Activates Surveillance Team

SLEMAN - The Health Office (Dinkes) of Sleman Regency, Yogyakarta Special Region, has activated surveillance teams in all puskesmas to anticipate the possibility of acute hepatitis entering the area.

"Until today, there have been no reports of findings of acute hepatitis cases in Sleman, but we ask all puskesmas to take precautions if there are people who have complaints such as acute hepatitis," said Head of the Sleman District Health Office Cahya Purnama in Sleman, Thursday.

According to him, the surveillance team at each of these puskesmas is tasked with observing patients who have symptoms, such as yellowing eyes, abnormal bowel movements and dark yellow urine and other symptoms of acute hepatitis.

"We haven't formed a district-level task force yet, but we have activated a rapid action team if there are reports of hepatitis symptoms," he said.

He said his party was also moving quickly to immediately make circulars through websites and social media that were easy to read so that people would not be misled, once they received information from WHO that the mysterious acute hepatitis disease appeared.

"We ask people not to panic, like during the COVID-19 outbreak, but people still have to be vigilant," he said.

"Mysterious hepatitis, which attacks many children, is not classified as Hepatitis A, B, C, D or E," he said.

He hopes that the public will immediately report to the nearest health facility if they find symptoms similar to this acute hepatitis.

"If there are people who experience or know that there are symptoms of jaundice, they must go to the nearest health facility," he said.