Govt presses for establishing research labs in malaria-endemic regions

Manokwari (ANTARA) - Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin underscored the need to open laboratories for conducting research and examination of malaria parasite-carrying mosquitoes in endemic regions, emulating the steps taken by PT Freeport Indonesia in Mimika, Central Papua.

During an inspection of a malaria control program in Kuala Kencana Sub-district on Friday, the minister praised the high quality of the entomology laboratory managed by the mining company.

"Endemic regions should erect this kind of laboratory to identify ways to stop or impede the spread of mosquito larvae, study the dangerous larvae, and study the mosquitoes and control their population," he noted in PTFI's statement received in Manokwari, West Papua.

In the company of Central Papua Acting Governor Ribka Haluk, Sadikin made the most of his visit to Mimika to see first-hand the malaria handling carried out by PTFI.

He expressed hope that the malaria control program implemented by PTFI would help suppress the population of dangerous mosquitoes in Mimika, which is identified as a malaria hotspot.

Meanwhile, PTFI's Director & Executive Vice President of Sustainable Development, Claus Wamafma, noted that the company had contributed to malaria elimination in Mimika for over a quarter of a decade.

He underlined that PTFI had been working along with various stakeholders, including the Mimika Health office, taking preventive and curative measures, and conducting dissemination of information about malaria handling to schoolchildren, health cadres, and members of the public in general.

Earlier, the Indonesian Health Ministry emphasized that the government's malaria eradication program is on track, as reflected by the achievement of national malaria elimination targets in districts and cities.

"For instance, in 2023, we were aiming for malaria elimination in 385 districts and cities, but we managed to eliminate the disease in a total of 389 regions," the ministry's director of prevention and control of infectious diseases, Imran Pambudi, stated in Jakarta on April 25.

He highlighted that this year, the government is targeting 405 regions, and it has successfully eliminated the disease in 393 districts and cities as of March.

The official, however, noted that Indonesia's malaria case count is still the second-highest in Asia, despite a decline of around 25 thousand in 2023 as compared to the previous year.

He pointed out that as many as 369,119 cases out of the 418,546 cases registered last year were detected in the provinces of Papua, Central Papua, South Papua, and Highland Papua.