Govt puzzled over bird flu, cats probed

Govt puzzled over bird flu, cats probed

Bhimanto Suwastoyo, Agence France-Presse/Jakarta

Indonesia's human bird flu outbreak is puzzling experts because
several victims do not work or live around poultry, prompting an
investigation into whether other animal hosts, perhaps cats, are
to blame for the disease's spread.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says the lethal H5N1
strain of bird flu that has killed more than 60 people in
Southeast Asia since late 2003 is mostly transmitted to humans
through direct contact with infected birds or their droppings.

But Minister of Health Siti Fadilah Supari has said there is
so far no evidence of most of the country's victims catching the
virus through close contact with, or eating the meat of, infected
birds.

"We can only suspect that those infected, contracted the virus
through the droppings or contact with the saliva of infected
birds or fowl," said Suyono, from the health ministry's bird flu
department.

Only the latest confirmed bird flu death, a young man from
nearby Bogor who died in hospital in September but was only
confirmed as a bird flu death this week, had been staying in a
house where several chickens had died of suspected bird flu.

Suyono says it is a mystery how several other people confirmed
to have bird flu in Indonesia -- three of whom have also died --
contracted H5N1 when they lived in and around urban Jakarta, far
from a chicken or poultry farm.

Indonesia has recorded seven confirmed cases of bird flu, with
28 others being investigated, including nine suspicious deaths,
since July, according to the WHO.

"Worldwide, more than 80 percent of infections can be traced
back to contact with poultry," said Indonesia's WHO
representative Georg Petersen, adding that the body was not yet
concerned that animals such as cats may be spreading the disease.

"In some countries, there have been reports of animals such as
tigers and cats being infected just as with pigs, but so far we
have no report of anyone contracting the virus from animals other
than poultry,"

"There is so far no indication that animals other than poultry
or pig are sources of infections for humans.

"Studies are welcome, we certainly need to know more but I
think it is not something that is important at this point in
time."

I Wayan Teguh Wibawan, from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture
(IPB), said the data on human infection in Indonesia was
"puzzling".

"We have suspected cases in isolated areas, far from any
potential sources of contamination such as poultry or pig farms,
and on the other hand, we have almost no suspected human
infection cases among workers in the poultry industries,
including those hit by the bird flu."

The obvious exception was the first Indonesian to test
positive for bird flu in June. The poultry farmer from South
Sulawesi province has remained healthy and since showed no
symptoms of the disease.

Chaerul Nidom, a bird flu expert from Airlangga University in
Surabaya, East Java, suspects that other animals might be
carrying the virus and transmitting it to humans while showing no
ill effects from infection themselves.

"I believe that there is the factor of another animal as a
source of infection," Nidom said, pointing his finger at cats,
dogs, hamsters, rats and even mice as possible vectors.

"The most likely candidates are cats," he said, citing
research in Thailand where infections were last year found in
domestic cats, though with no evidence it was in turn being
passed on to humans.

IPB's Wibawan also said cats could be a possible source of
secondary infection, but cautioned that studies of felines and
their possible role in the spread of avian flu were only
beginning in Indonesia.

Other experts suggested the reason bird flu infections in
Indonesia could not be linked clearly to close contact with
infected poultry because monitoring the poultry industry in the
vast archipelago is problematic.

"Chickens continue to die of the disease here and there, but
farmers are reluctant to report them and the government certainly
does not have the capabilities to monitor everything," said
Marthen Malole, a retired lecturer in veterinary sciences from
IPB.

Experts fear a pandemic that could kill millions across the
globe if H5N1 acquires genetic material from a human influenza
virus and becomes easily transmittable from human to human.