The prices of medicines has soared five or six-fold. The high costs of imports, pushed up by the devaluation of Indonesia's currency, is hurting the health sector because Indonesia imports more than 80 percent of drugs and drug ingredients. Dr. Rahman Maas, director of the Bandung Hasan Sadikin Public Hospital, said his hospital can hardly get thrombocytes and plasma expanders, which are essential for dengue fever treatment. The lack of hospital rooms has prompted Jakarta administration officials to build temporary field clinics, as the number of dengue sufferers continues to rise. Many hospitals are now temporarily treating dengue patients in corridors.
Inadequate blood is another hindrance.
Red Cross offices are unable to keep up with up the demand for blood, and the government has desperately called on the public to donate blood to be used for transfusions into dengue patients. City Red Cross chief Uga WIranto said blood supply was very low, and her understaffed office has to toil round the clock to meet the demand. But some experts are befuddled about the demand for blood, saying too many doctors are liberally prescribing unnecessary transfusions. As important as prompt treatment of dengue are efforts to make the environment inhospitable for the Aedes aegypti mosquito, experts said. Fumigation is not enough.