JAKARTA, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- Indonesian President Megawati ordered hospitals to treat dengue fever victims, irrespective of their ability to pay, as the death toll rose to 267.
"I call on all hospitals to accept dengue fever patients and treat them without looking at their economic background. Let us face this threat together," Megawati said in a speech broadcast nationwide over state-run television.
Health Ministry data said indicates the outbreak has killed as many as 267 people in 22 of Indonesia's 32 provinces and sickened more than 15,000 others since the disease was first detected last month. The current outbreak is the worst the country has experienced.
Most of the reported cases were on Java, Indonesia's most densely populated island, where more than 60 percent of the country's 215 million people live.
Jakarta, with a population of nearly 12 million, has been one of the worst hit areas. In the capital 5,431 people have been hospitalized and 53 have died from the mosquito-borne viral disease.
The World Health Organization estimates nearly 100 million people worldwide are infected with dengue fever each year, with a death rate of about 5 percent.
