After rocked by a series of earthquakes in July and August, now Lombok is battling malaria and declaring a health emergency an official said on Sunday (Sept 16).
After the quake, aid groups said many of the hundreds of thousands left homeless were camping in open fields, refusing to seek shelter indoors as tremors continued.
A malaria outbreak has infected at least 137 people in Indonesia's West Lombok. Babies and pregnant women are among the people found to have been infected with malaria.
"It's an extraordinary occurrence of malaria," Rahman Sahnan Putra, the chief of the West Lombok Health Agency, told Reuters by telephone.
The local government was seeking 3.4 billion rupiah from the central and regional governments to help fund mosquito nets, test kits and the emergency response effort, he added.
Although malaria is endemic in West Lombok, recent tests revealed a spurt in infections, another regional official said.
"There was a mass blood survey and the entire community was checked," said Marjito, the chief of the health agency of West Nusatenggara, the province that is home to Lombok.
The incident was being treated as a "standard outbreak", Marjito said, adding that those testing positive for the disease are treated, counselled and their surroundings sprayed with disinfectant.
Many of those infected had been living in tents after the quakes and did not get proper rest, making them more vulnerable, he added.
Sources: straitstimes.com