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Bird flu spreads to Indonesia
03/02/2004 07:08 - (SA)
Jakarta - The Indonesian government said on Tuesday that the country has the same deadly strain of bird flu that has infected humans elsewhere in Asia, but that no people have been infected.
Indonesian officials previously said that only milder versions of bird flu - ones not known to infect humans - had been confirmed in poultry here, although health experts suspected it also was suffering from an outbreak of the more dangerous H5N1 strain.
"The results from the field show that the avian influenza found in Indonesia is H5N1, and Indonesia has reported this finding to the World Health Organisation," said Trisatya Naipospos, an Agriculture Ministry official.
Officals blame the H5N1 strain of bird flu for infecting people in Vietnam and Thailand, leaving at least 12 people dead. Most of those cases have been traced to direct contact with sick birds.
Tens of millions of chickens have been slaughtered in government-ordered culls throughout the region as 10 countries battle to contain bird flu.
The disease also has hit poultry farms in Cambodia, China, Japan, Laos, Pakistan, South Korea and Taiwan.
Different strain
However, international health officials say the strain of bird flu striking Taiwan and Pakistan is different from the one hitting the other countries and is not considered a serious threat to humans.
Indonesia only last week acknowledged the presence of bird flu in its chicken stocks, which WHO officials now say has been here for months. President Megawati Sukarnoputri ordered a mass cull of chickens in areas infected with the flu.
Officials said 111 chicken farmers on the tourist island of Bali - which has been hard hit by the virus - had been tested for bird flu and came out clean. Similar blood tests were taken from 100 farmers near the capital Jakarta, also with no confirmed cases.
Last week, the government said bird flu would cost the country nearly $1bn and result in the loss of more than 1.2 million jobs.
Iswandi, assistant manager of a large supermarket in downtown Jakarta, said on Tuesday that chicken sales had dropped by 50 percent since December.
"As long as people are scared and worrying about the flu, they won't eat chicken," he said.
The government has come under heavy criticism for failing to alert the public of the threat and for being slow to respond.
"I completely stopped eating chicken when I found out that the government was engaged in a cover-up and I won't start eating it again until I believe they're telling the truth," said Nicole Lediard, a psychologist from California who lives in Jakarta.
- AP
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