Bird flu isolates in S. Sulawesi, W. Java
Rendi A. Witular and Andi Hajramurni, The Jakarta Post, Makassar/Jakarta
The government is taking steps to isolate outbreaks of avian influenza, or bird flu, in South Sulawesi and West Java.
The South Sulawesi Husbandry Agency took samples from 25,500 chickens found dead in the past week in five regencies -- Wajo, Soppeng, Sidenreng Rapang, Pinrang and Maros -- and sent the samples to laboratories in Makassar, Bogor and Yogyakarta. Tests confirmed the chickens died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu.
"However, we have yet to determine how many of the chickens died from bird flu, because we also suspect some of them died from Newcastle disease," South Sulawesi Husbandry Agency head Arifin Sarsa said during a hearing with the provincial legislative council on Wednesday.
Minister of Agriculture Anton Apriyantono said on Wednesday after a Cabinet meeting at the State Palace in Jakarta that his ministry had confirmed the presence of bird flu in South Sulawesi.
"The ministry has confirmed new cases of bird flu in South Sulawesi after the virus resurfaced in West Java earlier this year. The virus in South Sulawesi may have come from West Java," he said.
He said husbandry agencies in the two provinces had stopped the flow of chickens into and out of affected areas to stop the virus from spreading to other regencies and provinces.
Anton said the agencies had destroyed infected chickens and vaccinated unaffected ones. He also said there were no indications in South Sulawesi or West Java that the virus had mutated.
At one poultry farm in Wajo regency, South Sulawesi, 1,300 chickens died of bird flu. In days, the virus had spread throughout the regency, killing thousands more chickens.
To prevent the further spread of the virus, the regency administration distributed 200,000 vaccines and sprayed the dead chickens with disinfectant. The administration also banned people from approaching poultry farms where bird flu had been detected.
During last year's bird flu outbreak, South Sulawesi remained unaffected by the disease. The provinces most affected by the 2004 outbreak were Central Java, with bird flu detected in 17 regencies, East Java (13 regencies), Yogyakarta (6), Bali (5), Lampung (3), West Java (3), Banten (1), South Kalimantan (1), East Kalimantan (1) and Central Kalimantan (1).
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), bird flu is an infectious disease of birds caused by type A strains of the influenza virus. Bird flu devastated the poultry industries of numerous Asian countries last year.
In Indonesia, the government attempted to cover up bird flu in 2004 until the story appeared in the media, forcing the government to launch a serious operation to fight the virus.
A WHO investigation has found that close contact with live, infected poultry can cause bird-to-human transmission of avian influenza. The organization said selling live poultry directly to customers and slaughtering chickens at markets -- practices that are commonplace in Indonesia -- should be discouraged because this can increase the risk of infection.
WHO says that as long as chicken meat and eggs are cooked properly -- at temperatures above 70 degrees Celsius -- they are safe to consume.