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Growing concern about bird flu
22/09/2005 21:32 - (SA)
Jakarta - Indonesia was struggling to calm public fears on Thursday about an outbreak of bird flu that has killed four people in the capital - after three children suspected of having the disease died and 11 other patients were hospitalised with flu-like symptoms.
The government, accused of responding too slowly to the bird flu virus when it first started sweeping through chicken farms across the sprawling archipelago two years ago, scrambled to ward off an epidemic.
It has fired the country's chief of animal health control for allegedly failing to check the spread of the disease and announced plans on Wednesday for mass slaughters of poultry in infected areas.
Forty-four hospitals have been prepared to accept bird flu patients and the government said it could forcibly admit anyone with symptoms of the disease.
"If things worsen it could become an epidemic," said health minister Siti Fadila Supari, who was planning to hold a press conference on Thursday.
Government awaiting test results
The government is awaiting test results on the two- and five-year-old girls who died on Wednesday in Jakarta and a five-year-old boy who died on Thursday in East Kalimantan province, doctors said.
Blood samples of 11 patients hospitalised in the capital - two after visiting a popular zoo that was closed earlier this week when eagles, peacocks and other birds were found to have the virus - also have been sent to Hong Kong.
The H5N1 strain of bird flu has swept through poultry populations in large swaths of Asia since 2003, killing at least 63 people and resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of birds.
Most human cases have been linked to contact with sick birds. But the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans - possibly triggering a global pandemic that could kill millions.
Antiviral treatment
A top WHO official said the agency was prepared to begin distributing large-scale quantities of an antiviral drug to treat bird flu in humans "if and when a pandemic starts".
Dr Shigeru Omi, director for WHO's Western Pacific region, said at a WHO conference in New Caledonia that the UN agency was ready to open its stockpile of oseltamivir, an antiviral drug, to help avert a global pandemic of the disease.
WHO regards a pandemic as a multi-country outbreak of bird flu, in which the disease has been passed from human to human.
Indonesia has in the past said it could not afford mass slaughters -something the UN suggests is the best way to prevent the virus' spread - but reversed that decision on Wednesday.
Tri Satya Putri Naipospos, the director of animal health at the agriculture ministry, meanwhile, said she was fired for allegedly failing to control Indonesia's outbreak.
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