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Bird flu cases down, but pandemic looms
Indonesia must continue preparing for a bird flu pandemic, despite reports suggesting declines in cases of bird-to-human and bird-to-bird infections, health officials said Tuesday
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Indonesia must continue preparing for a bird flu pandemic, despite reports suggesting declines in cases of bird-to-human and bird-to-bird infections, health officials said Tuesday.
Erna Tresnaningsih, the Health Ministry's director for animal-vector diseases, said the confirmed number of humans infected by the H5N1 virus in Indonesia this year was 20 as of August, with 17 fatalities.
This is a decline, she claimed, from 55 cases with 45 fatalities in 2006 and 42 cases with 37 fatalities in 2007.
Indonesia has recorded a total of 137 confirmed bird-to-human infections, 112 of them fatal, since July 2005, when H5N1 was first found to attack humans.
Erna added 12 of the country's 33 provinces had recorded infections in humans, but seven of the provinces saw no new cases in the past year, leaving incidents of bird flu infections concentrated in West Sumatra, Banten, Jakarta, West Java and Central Java.
"Praise be to God, with good partnership we've been able to push the figures," she told a forum on boosting businesses' preparedness for a possible bird flu pandemic.
Muhammad Azhar, the Agriculture Ministry's avian influenza control unit coordinator, reported a declining trend in the number of poultry infected by the H5N1 virus.
He said poultry in 31 provinces had been infected by H5N1, with only Gorontalo and North Maluku free from the virus, but added that nine of the provinces had not reported any new cases in the past six months.
"Areas still at risk are those on Java Island, because it is the main producer of both pedigree and non-pedigree chickens," Azhar said.
Despite the declining number of infections, Indonesia has to be alert to the possibility of a bird flu pandemic, which, once it breaks out, could infect up to 66 million people, the Health Ministry warned.
Emil Agustiono, deputy to the coordinating minister for people's welfare, said a bird flu pandemic was unpredictable, but could happen through either the breeding of the H5N1 avian influenza virus with the H3N2/H1N1 human influenza virus, or through the mutation of the H5N1 virus in the human body.
Both processes could produce a new type of deadly, transmittable human-to-human influenza virus, which could then lead to a new influenza pandemic, he said.
Subhash Salunke, the World Health Organization's (WHO) representative to Indonesia, warned that once the pandemic struck, Indonesia would see an overwhelming of health care services, the collapse of critical public services, workforce absenteeism, public fear and panic, and the closure of borders, travel and trade.
He said Indonesia could suffer from economic losses of US$1.4 billion if the pandemic lasted six months, or up to $5.8 billion if it lasted a year.
Salunke emphasized the need for preparedness and intervention in the case of a pandemic, so as to minimize its severity, adding that if a new flu pandemic did strike, it could cause 160-300 million deaths globally.
Alan Boulton, the International Labor Organization's (ILO) Indonesia country director, said if employers wanted their businesses to keep running during such a pandemic, they would have to start preparing their workplaces and developing business continuity plans involving their employees.
