In Reply to: malaria in bali... posted by alex on Monday, 5. April 1999 at 23:57 Bali Time:
Matter of fact, Nuyh Kuning is where I live, right in the middle of the rice fields. I have several friends, expats, who caught malaria in Flores and Irian, but I have never heard of anybody, Balinese or otherwise, catching malaria in Bali. A little malaria existed in Sanur in the "old days." That person on your plane could not tell you where he had been, being unconscious. Since you describe him as a surfer, it means to me he came to Indonesia to enjoy serious surfing, and was not a "sunday surfer" like me. Therefore, he most likely went to other surfing areas, which are a little more chalanging than Kuta. I am not a epidemologist. My understanding of this malaria problem comes from Dr. A.A.M. Djelantik, who has worked in Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan as a expert malariologist with the World Health Organisation, and became the Bali's Chief Medical Officer in 1957. He is now retired from this position.