Bird flu back in West Java

Bird flu back in West Java

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung

Bird flu has resurfaced in Indonesia, killing at least 21,000
chickens on farms in West Java over the last two months, an
official says.

The head of farm animal health at the West Java Animal
Husbandry Office, Musni Suatmodjo, said on Wednesday avian
influenza, or bird flu, had spread to five regencies and
municipalities in the province.

He identified them as Cirebon regency and municipality, Subang
regency, Indramayu regency and Sukabumi regency.

Musni said Cirebon municipality had the most reported cases of
bird flu, with about 12,000 chickens killed by the H5n1 and H7n1
viruses.

"The affected area is smaller than last year. In early 2004,
(the bird flu) spread to 10 areas. We hope to reduce the number
of cases this year," he said in Bandung.

According to the World Health Organization, avian influenza is
an infectious disease of birds caused by type A strains of the
influenza virus. The disease, which was first identified in Italy
more than 100 years ago, occurs worldwide.

Fifteen subtypes of influenza virus are known to infect birds,
but to date all outbreaks of the highly pathogenic form have been
caused by influenza A viruses of subtypes H5 and H7.

Musni said that last year bird flu was reported in 10 areas in
West Java and killed about 1.6 million of six million farmed
chickens in the province, or 25.3 percent.

He said he was confident this year's bird flu outbreak would
be less severe, maybe killing just 10 percent of farmed chickens
in the province.

"We have prepared 50 million doses of vaccine to stop the
spread of the virus in 2005," he said.

The government only went public with last year's bird flu
outbreak after remaining silent for five months.

Until it came out and publicly acknowledged the outbreak, the
government was insisting the country was free of the disease,
which was first spotted on Aug. 29, 2003, in Pekalongan, Central
Java. The government had been blaming the deaths of thousands of
chickens across East Java and Bali on Newcastle disease, which is
caused by a virus that is harmless to humans.

According to estimates from the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, which were announced
during a recent 28-nation conference on bird flu in Vietnam, bird
flu cost Asian farmers and agricultural industries US$10 billion
in 2004.

Vietnam has been hit hardest by this year's outbreak of the
virus, which erupted across much of Asia at the end of 2003 and
has killed 46 people -- 33 Vietnamese, 12 Thais and a Cambodian.
Almost every person who has fallen ill with bird flu is known to
have caught the virus from contact with sick birds.

But according to the FAO, while Vietnam has borne the brunt of
the recent outbreak, the H5N1 virus is now also endemic in
Thailand, Indonesia and China.