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Jakarta Post

Public told to stay alert despite declining threat

Efforts to reduce the transmission of avian influenza (bird flu) in Indonesia should not stop despite the significant decrease in H5N1 cases

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Fri, April 30, 2010

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Public told to stay alert despite declining threat

E

fforts to reduce the transmission of avian influenza (bird flu) in Indonesia should not stop despite the significant decrease in H5N1 cases.

“Bird flu cases in poultry and humans are decreasing. The last case found in a human was in Jakarta in January,” Emil Agustiono from the Coordinating Public Welfare Ministry said Wednesday.

“The H5N1 virus, which is pathogenic and deadly, is endemic in Indonesia,” he said. “But we should not be afraid. We just need to be aware of it.”

According to the World Health Organization, the number of deaths due to H5N1 in Indonesia decreased steadily from 45 in 2006, to 37 in 2007 and to 19 in 2009.

To help Indonesia reduce the risk of bird flu, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), through the Community-Based Avian Influenza Control Project (CBAIC) conducted a 4-year program.

“The focus has been to work at the community, government, local government, health and husbandry agency level, as well as with commercial farms,” Maria Isabel Busquets of CBAIC said.

“This is all to reduce the risk of avian influenza transmission.”

Avian influenza is a contagious animal disease that infects birds and can on rare occasions infect humans.

“Avian flu is really a bird disease. A bird to human infection is really difficult, but it happens,” she said. “What we want to do, collectively, is to prevent this disease from becoming a human disease.”

The transmission of avian influenza could become pronounced in areas where there is a direct link between humans and poultry. For example, poultry owners, duck producers, traders and transporters, slaughterhouses, market managers, poultry vendors and customers. This poultry supply chain has become a major factor facilitating the transmission of H5N1.

Busquets said there was so much opportunity for the disease to spread in the poultry supply chain.

The density of the human and poultry populations in Indonesia has made the country a fertile place for H5N1 outbreaks.

West Java, one of the regions with high incidences of bird flu cases, was the focus area for CBAIC in the last two years of the program, and has recently shown a decrease in bird flu cases in humans.

“From 2005 to December 2009, there were 41 confirmed humans avian flu cases with 36 fatalities in West Java,” Tuti Surtimanah, of the West Java Health Agency, “However, during the first three months of this year, there were no confirmed human case of avian flu.” (map)

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