Ekuatorial, Ternate – Climate change impacts in Ternate, North Maluku province was quite noticeably. The rainy season is currently unable to predict again when the start and end, often change with the heat at the moment should have already entered the rainy season in the region. It is as expressed by Mohamad Riva, head of data and information section of Ternate’s BMKG (Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics). “Climate change impacts in Ternate quite noticeably, influence the temperature, rainfall and sea water level here,” he said.
Based on data Ternate’s BMKG, during this last one year, there are changes in rainfall that is quite significant compared to the normal data. He also mentioned that Ternate is a small island, making it highly vulnerable to the impact of climate change.
Climate change that occurs in Ternate is directly affected in malaria cases. Iswah Yudi, management of the malaria program centre in North Maluku said ternate is an endemic malaria area because there are many brooding places and geographically is very suitable for Anopheles mosquito.
He also explained that malaria cases are associated with climate change. “Malaria cases first is usually one to two times a year, but now the number of cases could reach four times,” he said.
Malaria program manager of Ternate Health Services, Sunarti Arsan said, “Mosquitoes in Ternate now more and more because of rainy weather and then turns dry and erratic.”
He describes that these conditions are ideal for anopheles mosquito breeding. Different case if it rains constantly, mosquito eggs will be carried by raining or dry constantly allowing the absence of mosquito brooding places. Therefore, the community is expected to be ready to anticipate the weather conditions like this and continue to preserve the health of the environment.
Nurbaya Sangadji, head of the disease control, Ternate Health Department mentioned several programs such as distribute insecticide mosquito net, counseling and monitoring continue to be carried out for the prevention of malaria cases. He also said that pregnant women, babies and children are the groups that are more vulnerable to malaria than other groups. “Therefore, we currently focus to these two groups.”
Data from the Health Service mentions, in 2008 the number of positive malaria incidence (API) in Ternate is 38 per thousand populations. That number continued to decline until June 2014, the API in Ternate, i.e. one per thousand of the population. “This is a good sign that public awareness has started to grow and the health actuator works pretty well,” said Yudi. Januar Hakam.