No cholera outbreak in Bali: Ministry<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Health says it is puzzled by a
\nreport suggesting 77 Japanese tourists have been affected by
\ncholera after returning from the holiday island of Bali.<\/p>\n
As far as the ministry is concerned, there has not been a
\nmajor cholera outbreak in Bali, or any other part of Indonesia
\nfor that matter, spokeswoman Suheni Sujatmiko told the Antara
\nnews agency yesterday.<\/p>\n
To suggest that 77 Japanese tourists have caught the cholera
\nvirus in Bali, in such a short time, there must have been a major
\noutbreak on the island, Suheni said. \"But the reality is
\ncompletely the opposite.\"<\/p>\n
The Ministry has already ordered the Health Office in Bali to
\ninvestigate the report, she added.<\/p>\n
The Japanese ministry of health early this week said it had
\nreceived reports of 62 confirmed and 15 suspected cases of
\ncholera in 23 prefectures nationwide in the last two weeks.
\nAccording to Agence France Presse, all the patients had one thing
\nin common -- they had recently spent a holiday in Bali.<\/p>\n
The report has also baffled Tokyo health officials because
\nthere hadn't been any report of an outbreak in Bali.<\/p>\n
A team from the Bali Health Office visited on Wednesday a
\nnumber of government and private hospitals to check out any cases
\nof cholera. The team also visited restaurants that are frequently
\nvisited by Japanese tourists and took samples of their food for
\nlaboratory tests, Antara reported.<\/p>\n
\"We took some lobster and fish for our samples,\" said a doctor
\nin the team.<\/p>\n
Tourist officials and tour operators in Bali have been up in
\narms over the barrage of publicity by the Japanese media about
\nthe outbreak of cholera on the island.<\/p>\n
Mardani Rata, head of the province's Tourism, Post and
\nTelecommunications office, said the Japanese media owed it to the
\npeople of Bali to restore the good name of the island because
\ntheir reports were simply untrue.<\/p>\n
Mardani said he had already told the Japanese television
\nnetwork NHK, which had sent a crew to Bali, to refute the report.<\/p>\n
He said the media publicity about the cholera outbreak was
\nhurting the tourism industry in Bali.<\/p>\n
Since the report was false, the Japanese media ought to put
\nout a correction and restore the image of Bali, which is a
\npopular destination for Japanese tourists, he added. (emb)<\/p>",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
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