Govt finds bird flu virus in Banten pigs
Govt finds bird flu virus in Banten pigs
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government has found the bird flu virus in pigs in Jakarta's
neighboring province of Banten, Minister of Agriculture Anton
Apriyantono said on Friday.
"The Ministry's Veterinary Research Agency confirmed a
positive case of bird flu in pigs late last month," Anton told
The Jakarta Post in an interview.
He added that the agency had tested several samples from
different sites, including Bali and Surabaya, East Java, but only
the one from "a place in Banten" tested positive.
The agency said, however, they were not showing symptoms of
the disease. "The pigs are like carriers of the virus," Anton
said.
He refused to state the exact location where the discovery had
been made for fear of sparking panic among the public.
He refused to provide details of what the ministry was doing
in the light of the test results, only promising that the
government would provide the public with the necessary
information when the time was right. He gave assurances, however,
that the government was taking all necessary measures to keep the
situation under control.
The ministry was collaborating with the Ministry of Health in
dealing with the matter.
Separately, Minister of Health Siti Fadilah Supari said her
ministry had increased surveillance efforts in certain areas of South
Sulawesi and Java island to identify possible cases of human
infection by the pathogenic virus.
The ministry has sent a total of 83 blood samples from poultry
workers for laboratory tests in Hong Kong as a precaution, but it
would take between two and four weeks before the results became
known.
"The surveillance efforts are still ongoing, and we have yet
to find any confirmed case (in humans) so far," she told the
Post.
She admitted, however, that her ministry had yet to conduct
surveillance or take blood samples from farm workers in Banten.
Despite the bird flu outbreak in the region, there have been
no confirmed cases of human infection in Indonesia so far.
According to WHO representative Georg Petersen, the H5N1
strain can infect humans. The latest reports say that 36
Vietnamese, 12 Thais and four Cambodians have died as a result of
contracting the H5N1 virus since 2003.
Earlier, National Institute of Sciences (LIPI) molecular
virology researcher Andi Utama said that the spread of the bird
flu virus to pigs meant that the deadly virus had taken a step
closer to infecting humans in Indonesia.
Pigs can host human flu viruses, which could combine with the
avian viruses, swap genes, and create virulent new strains, Andi
said in a research paper
In the worst case scenario, such new strains could trigger a
global pandemic that could kill millions.
The Ministry of Health has suggested on its website that
people working on farms should wear masks and be sprayed with
disinfectant before and after entering areas containing
livestock.
Andi added that consumers of poultry and pigs should not worry
about infection.
If meat is cooked properly, the avian flu virus will be killed
as it cannot survive at high temperatures.