HK lab confirms bird flu deaths

Muninggar Sri Saraswati and Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government confirmed on Wednesday the first fatal victims of bird flu in the country as tests on a man and his two children who died this month showed they had the virus.

But Minister of Health Siti Fadilah Supari urged the public to remain calm as the H5N1 avian flu virus is only transmitted from poultry to humans, and not between humans.

"We have obtained the result from Hong Kong. It is confirmed that it was H51N," Siti told the press at the Presidential Office, referring to a Hong Kong laboratory where the government sent specimens to determine the cause of the deaths.

"Don't panic because this is a conventional virus. It's not transmittable between humans," she said, adding that people could still consume poultry products as long as they were cooked well.

This is the first human death case from bird flu that has been reported in the country. Another man, who works on a poultry farm in South Sulawesi, tested positive for the virus. But, he shows no symptoms and leads a normal life.

The government last week expressed concern that it could be bird flu, which caused the death of 38-year-old Iwan Siswara Rafei and his two young daughters. Iwan was an auditor for the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) and lived in Tanggerang, Banten.

The government, however, is at a complete loss as to how Iwan and his daughters contracted the deadly virus.

The victims are not known to have had any contact with sick fowl within the past four months, according to the health ministry. However, the government says that there is a poultry farm located about 15 kilometers away from the family home.

Some 300 people who recently came into contact with Iwan are now under close observation by the ministry's officers.

Georg Petersen, a representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Indonesia, was quoted by AFP as saying that the government should investigate how the three victims became infected and conduct surveillance to prevent further human infections.

Meanwhile, Minister of Agriculture Anton Apriyantono said in order to help prevent the outbreak of bird flu, the government would intensify biosecurity measures at all poultry farms as well giving out vaccines in areas prone to the disease.

"The ministry is tasked with preventing the virus from spreading and occurring in the future. We are now still calculating additional funds needed for the measures," said Anton after a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

Anton said the biosecurity measures would include mass culling of all cultivated chickens and birds within a three-kilometer radius of any bird flu outbreak, and close surveillance within a radius of 20 kilometers from the initial source.

Another biosecurity measure is that the government will from now ban all pig farms located near poultry farms due to fears that the bird flu virus might jump to pigs, and create a new, more virulent strain, threatening humans.

The government will also isolate an entire province or city found to have been infected by the disease.

Bird flu, or avian influenza, has now killed 57 people in Southeast Asia -- 30 Vietnamese, 12 Thais, four Cambodians and three Indonesians -- since 2003.

Although there had been no known cases of transmission of the virus between humans, there are now growing fears that the virus could mutate and easily be passed between humans, creating a global epidemic.

The virus has already jumped species in this country and was found in pigs in May in Banten, raising worries that the virus could create virulent new strains. Bird flu was first officially confirmed in Indonesia early last year.