Ministry Of Health Asks People Not To Easily Believe In Wolbachia Hoaxes

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) urges the public not to easily believe a number of hoax news related to Wolbachia which is widely circulated in cyberspace.

"The Ministry of Health has done this (the Wolbachian mosquito program) and is included in the national strategy based on studies, recommendations from WHO and also other national benchmarks," said Director General of Disease Prevention and Control at the Ministry of Health Maxi Rein Rondonuwu as reported by ANTARA, Friday, November 24.

Maxi assessed that in this open era, the possibility of hoaxes related to various matters including health is very easy to find. For this reason, the Ministry of Health continues to make efforts to provide good information, not only from the Ministry of Health, but also from a number of experts and researchers.

"Including the support of figures like Dahlan Iskan who wrote good things about this (Wolbachia). We want everyone to understand the benefits of this technology," he said.

Regarding the pros and cons regarding Wolbachia in Bali, he said it was caused by socialization that had not been implemented properly, so that not all people there were well informed.

"Of course it is necessary to carry out socialization continuously," he said.

Maxi stated that the implementation of dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) strategies with Wolbachia bacteria is one part of the government's efforts to be realized in the National Strategy (Stranas) for Dengue 2021-2025.

This, he said, is important to do considering that dengue cases occur every year.

The Director of Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases at the Ministry of Health, Imran Pambudi, said there were 76,449 cases of dengue with 571 deaths from January to November 2023, down from 143,300 with 1236 deaths in 2022.

"Actually, we were able to reduce more than half of last year's cases, but this death rate is still quite high. So we need to make or innovate in order to prevent and control dengue," said Imran.