Ragunan closed after 19 birds get avian flu
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government has decided to close down Ragunan Zoo in South Jakarta for 21 days starting Monday after they found 19 birds in the zoo had been infected with avian flu.
Minister of Agriculture Anton Apriantono said that Governor Sutiyoso had ordered the 140-hectare zoo to be closed after 19 out of 27 samples taken from various birds at the zoo tested positive for bird flu.
"Yes, the zoo will be closed from Monday. Based on the governor's instruction, the Jakarta animal husbandry agency and Ragunan zoo management have agreed to its closure," he told The Jakarta Post.
The minister said that among the birds that had tested positive for bird flu were peacocks, mynahs, wild ducks, pigmy chickens, eagles and herons.
Anton said that the zoo had to be closed to the public as the infected birds needed to receive treatment. In addition, tests had to be conducted on the other animals in the zoo.
He said that the infected birds would be destroyed if they were not protected.
The minister said that two weeks would not be enough to be able to decide whether the area was safe or not.
While confirming the closure of the zoo, its head of recreation services, H. Supriyanto, said that the closure was also needed to enable the government to test all of the zoo's employees.
"The zoo has about 500 employees. However, only around half of them work in the cages. These employees have direct contact with the infected animals. The minister said that they should be tested for bird flu," he told the Post.
However, Supriyanto stressed that all of the animals and employees were in good health.
The minister did not say if the many thousands of people who visited the zoo in the past few weeks should also undergo blood tests.
Meanwhile, two children are suspected to have been infected with the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus. They were identified as MG, 7, and S, 9.
MG, who lives with her family in Tangerang, and F, a close relative of Rini Dina Prasetyaningsih, who died of the virus two weeks ago, are now being treated at the Sulianti Saroso hospital in Sunter, North Jakarta.
Minister of Health Siti Fadilah Supari said that blood samples from the two children had been sent to a World Health Organization-sanctioned laboratory in Hong Kong early on Sunday.
"We sent the samples today to Hong Kong," she was quoted as saying by Tempo News Room in Garut, West Java.
Rini, a resident at Petukangan Utara, South Jakarta, was the fourth person to die of bird flu in Indonesia. In July, Iwan Siswara and his two daughters, residents of Tangerang, Banten province, died of the virus.