RI to learn from Vietnam on bird flu

RI to learn from Vietnam on bird flu

Reuters, Jakarta

Indonesia will study how Vietnam managed to contain an outbreak
of bird flu in humans, Indonesian health minister said on Tuesday
as the number of positive cases of the deadly virus in the
country rose to five.

"They have limited resources like us but they were able to
properly halt avian influenza," Siti Fadilah Supari told Reuters
after meeting her Vietnamese counterpart, Tran Thi Trung Chien.

"We will dissect the case, whether that is because of their
eradication measures or something else."

Vietnam has recorded 44 deaths from bird flu, the most of any
of the four Asian nations where the virus has claimed lives, but
there have been no new cases there since July.

There have been five confirmed cases in Indonesia since July,
comprising three deaths and two people being treated.

The World Health Organization warned last month that bird flu
was moving toward a form that could be passed between humans, and
the world had no time to waste to prevent a pandemic.

Vietnam's vice minister of health, Trinh Quan Huan, told
Reuters in an interview on Sept. 23 that Vietnam had bird flu
under control and that a mass poultry vaccination program to
inoculate 260 million birds was due to end in November.

Earlier, Indonesia said a 21-year-old man from the island of
Sumatra was being treated for bird flu, bringing the number of
positive cases in the country to five.

Tests at a laboratory in Hong Kong had confirmed the results,
said I Nyoman Kandun, director general of disease control at the
ministry.

"He participated in the butchering of a sick chicken. The
chicken meat was then shared with neighbors," Kandun told Reuters
by telephone.

The man was being treated at a hospital in the city of Bandar
Lampung along with his four-year-old nephew, who has tested
positive for bird flu in Indonesia but yet to be confirmed by the
Hong Kong laboratory as having the virus.

Some officials have put the number of positive cases in
Indonesia at six. Officials have also said four or five people
had died, but not all test results were sent to Hong Kong.

Bird flu has killed more than 60 people in Vietnam, Thailand,
Cambodia and Indonesia since late 2003 and has been found in
birds in Russia and Europe.

Kandun said 22 people were under observation for bird flu-like
symptoms in the world's fourth-most-populous nation but that none
had shown positive results yet.