Indonesia Gears Up to Ward Off Spread of Bird Flu

Indonesia gears up to ward off spread of bird flu

JAKARTA, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) — Indonesia takes immediate and firm measures to prevent further spread of bird flu disease after the virus killed four people in the country, a minister said here Tuesday.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has instructed concerned authorities to take immediate and firm measures to prevent the lethal virus from spreading, Coordinating Minister for People Welfare and Poverty Alleviation Alwi Shihab said after meeting with the president at the presidential office.

“We are instructed to take immediate and accurate actions to handle bird and human, who have been infected,” said Alwi at a joint press conference.

He said the president asked to stop the outbreak from further spreading, by conducting isolation and quarantine measures or taking prevention in vulnerable places, such as bird market, animal husbandry.

The president also asked to socialize the effort to the community, strengthen coordination among the authorities and enhancing cooperation with international communities, he added.

Although, there is no strict rule that obligate people to take measures that can prevent the spread of the disease, Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari called on people to report as soon as possible to the health authorities if they found new case of the epidemic disease.

In term of the finding of the virus in a zoo in Indonesia’s capital of Jakarta, the minister said that the government supported provincial authorities to investigate zoos in their area, but she said the government had not issued any policy to force them to do so.

Of the 31 birds suspected from suffering the disease in the Jakarta’s zoo of Ragunan, 19 of them are positively infected.

As the cause of the pandemic is hard to be controlled, Indonesian Agricultural Minister Anton Apriantono said that the implementation of bio security was the most appropriate way in preventing the attack of the disease.

“We now put priority on bio security. Hygiene and sanitation of environment, including on human and poultry, that could decline the risk,” he said at the press conference.

Wild birds and the way of raising chickens at the back yards in the country are the factors of the spread of the H5N1 virus, which are difficult to control.

He said the government is now in process of issuing a legal punishment to those hampering effort of eradicating the epidemic.

Six people are now suspectedly suffering from the disease, and two of them are the most possible, the health minister said.

The virus has attacked chickens and pigs in the country, which led the authorities to slaughter millions of them.

Earlier the health minister warned of other possible attacks of the disease.

The H5N1 virus has killed 63 people in Asia.

In Indonesia, it has spread to 21 provinces out of 33 since late 2003.