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Drastic drop in bird flu cases this year
Bird flu cases have dropped by more than 50 percent this year but people are warned to stay alert since the virus is still a threat to poultry, a health official says
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ird flu cases have dropped by more than 50 percent this year but people are warned to stay alert since the virus is still a threat to poultry, a health official says.
Health Ministry Director General for Disease Control and Environmental Health, Tjandra Yoga Aditama, said that the number of avian or bird flu fatalities among humans in Indonesia this year had dropped compared to last year.
“One or two cases have been detected a few months ago,” he said after taking part in the Global Handwashing Day campaign, attended by some 1,000 elementary school students, in the West Java provincial capital of Bandung on Friday.
Ministry data recorded that between Jan. 1 to Dec. 28 last year, 20 H5N1 bird flu cases were
recorded, causing 19 deaths.
Between 2005 and 2010, the ministry recorded 166 cases of humans catching bird flu, of whom 137 died.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the number of deaths due to the H5N1 virus in Indonesia decreased steadily from 45 in 2006, to 37 in 2007 and to 19 in 2009.
Tjandra said bird flu cases across the world have dropped drastically although several countries, such as Indonesia and Egypt, still report some infections.
Meanwhile the WHO itself announced a month ago that the H1N1 swine flu pandemic has passed, he added.
Tjandra said that in the country, only cases of poultry-to-human infections of the H5N1 virus had been recorded so far, and no human-to-human transmission.
Avian influenza is a contagious animal disease that infects birds and can on rare occasions infect humans.
The transmission of avian influenza could become pronounced in areas where there is a direct link between humans and poultry.
West Java Health Office head Alma Lucyati attributed the significant drop in the number of bird flu cases recorded in the province — one of the country’s regions with the highest incidences of bird flu cases — to increasing awareness on health and more aggressive health campaigns.
West Java, home to some 43 million people, ranked first in terms of the highest number of bird flu cases in Indonesia in 2008, with 34 positive cases, 29 of which ended in deaths.
“I hope for better health awareness within the community to further cut down the number of bird flu cases,” she told The Jakarta Post in Bandung on Friday.
She said that bird flu cases in the province had dropped to below 10 cases last year. No H5N1 cases were recorded across the province between January and October this year, she added.
“We have conducted the drive to wash hands and to maintain cleanliness, especially at the household level,” referring to local health campaigns.
The UN-launched handwashing drive aimed to raise awareness on the need for sanitation among the poor.
Tjandra urged people to always wash their hands as this could reduce their chances of being infected by
the H5N1 virus by up to 50 percent, while deaths from H1N1 swine flu virus infections were less than 10 percent.
“That’s why children must wash their hands after holding animals,” he said.
