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.