Bali suggests foreign tourists get dengue fever vaccines amid increasing cases

Jakarta: Indonesia's Bali regional government has called on foreign tourists in the resort island to get dengue jabs as the dengue fever cases are currently increasing in the country.

Bali Health Agency's Acting Head of Disease Prevention and Control (P2P), Gusti Ayu Raka Susanti, said on Saturday that dengue vaccines were not yet to be a national mandatory but tourists were adviced to get the jabs just to ensure they would remain healthy during traveling, particularly when they entered endemic areas, Xinhua news agency reported.

"The dengue fever vaccinations are highly suggested, not only for tourists, but also all Balinese people, so that they can protect themselves from dengue infections," she said as quoted by local media.

Concerns over dengue high fever in Bali come up following an increasing rate of cases nationwide in Indonesia. Although the Bali regional government does not have any specific data on the number of tourists exposed to dengue fever, the overall dengue fever rate in the province has been quite high, with a total of 4,177 cases and five deaths from January to April this year.