Deadly avian flu continues to spread as new Jakarta case confirmed
Deadly avian flu continues to spread as new Jakarta case confirmed
Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
The deadly bird flu continues to spread in the capital, with a
health official in Jakarta announcing on Friday a 25-year-old
woman had tested positive for avian influenza.
"A Ministry of Health lab ran tests and she came back
positive. Her samples are now on their way to the WHO laboratory
in Hong Kong. We should know the results in about five days," the
spokesman and head of the avian influenza surveillance unit at
Sulianti Saroso Hospital, Ilham Patu, told The Jakarta Post.
He said the woman was treated at Tangerang Hospital before
being transferred to Sulianti Saroso on Thursday. The woman had
difficulty breathing and a breathing tube had to be inserted.
The World Health Organization-sanctioned laboratory in Hong
Kong has so far confirmed 13 bird flu cases in humans in
Indonesia, with eight people dying from the virus since July.
Separately, Minister of Health Siti Fadila Supari said Swiss
pharmaceutical company Roche had given Indonesia approval to
produce its antiviral drug Tamiflu to fight bird flu in humans.
She said the government was still in discussions with South
Korea on the purchase of raw materials for the drug, but that
state-controlled pharmaceutical company Kimia Farma was ready to
begin production on the drug.
Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Alwi Shihab said
earlier the government would draw up a presidential regulation on
the production and access of influenza vaccines for birds and
Tamiflu for humans.
So far the government has relied on donors such as Singapore,
Japan and Australia for its supply of Tamiflu.
The government also said it would launch a yearlong operation
against bird flu, involving the military, house-to-house checks
and mass culls of birds across the country.
"The President has said that until 2006, for one year, we will
intensively eradicate bird flu virus," Minister of Agriculture
Anton Apriyantono was quoted by AFP as saying during a mass cull
of birds in Utan Kayu, East Jakarta, on Friday.
He said the yearlong program would include weekly checks of
backyard farms and larger farms in Greater Jakarta for infected
birds.
"The important thing is surveillance. Should infected birds be
found, we will immediately cull them using this (burning)
method," Anton said, adding that the culls would continue until
all areas were deemed safe.
The Jakarta Animal Husbandry, Fisheries and Maritime Affairs
Agency destroyed on Friday some 500 chickens and pet birds in
Utan Kayu, where a number of infected birds have been found. The
owners did not receive any compensation for the destroyed birds.
From about 2,000 tests conducted by the agency in 30 of the
capital's 267 subdistricts, dozens of infected birds were found
in the subdistricts of Ceger, Utan Kayu, Pondok Kelapa, Duren
Sawit and Cipinang Melayu, all in East Jakarta, as well as in
Sunter Jaya and Cilincing in North Jakarta, Kapuk in West
Jakarta, and Petojo in Central Jakarta.