Bird flu outbreak ‘very worrying’, says minister
Jakarta Post 30 jan
JAKARTA (Dow Jones): Indonesia’s ongoing outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza remains a “very worrying” threat to human health, Minister of Health Siti Fadilah Supari said Monday.
The widespread, endemic presence of the H5N1 virus in domestic poultry stocks increases the opportunity for human H5N1 infections, Supari told a parliamentary committee.
“Bird flu is threatening Indonesia following findings that in almost all provinces, there are infected birds,” she said. “This is very worrying.”
Supari said that 95 percent of Indonesia’s H5N1 fatalities have been linked to direct contact with dead poultry.
Bird flu has killed 83 people out of a total of 152 confirmed cases worldwide since late 2003, World Health Organization data indicates. The majority of those cases have occurred in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia.
Indonesia has recorded 14 human H5N1 fatalities out of a total of 19 confirmed cases since July.
Dense poultry populations living in close proximity to humans on Indonesia’s main islands of Java and Bali make additional human H5N1 infections inevitable, international health officialssay.
Experts are concerned that Indonesia may be a regional weak link in global efforts to forestall a possible pandemic of an H5N1 mutant strain that could kill millions.
The Indonesian government responded to that threat last month by unveiling its 2006-2008 National Avian Influenza Strategic Management Plan.
The plan involves a two-plank strategy that includes the control of avian influenza outbreaks in humans and animals and preparation for the possible emergence of a human pandemic bird flu strain. Despite those preparations, the government “still finds it difficult” to enforce the separation of poultry-raising areas from residential areas, Supari said, without elaborating.