Hygienic living protects people from animal-borne diseases

Creating more hygienic living conditions, including proper animal handling, will better protect people against animal-borne diseases, experts say.

Jan Verhoef, a professor of clinical microbiology and infectious diseases with the Department of Medical Microbiology at the University Medical Center in Utrecht, the Netherlands, said that highly resistant zoonotic viruses appeared to break out more virulently as a result of the rapid increase of less hygienic living conditions due to excessive urban growth.

It was quite difficult to deal with such viruses, however, since they were infecting both animals and humans, he added.

“It’s much more difficult to control viruses transmitting between animals and humans. They live so closely together that the risk of virus resistance becomes much greater,” Verhoef told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of a three-day meeting of the fifth International Eijkman Conference in Jakarta, which will end on Thursday.

Influenza is one of the newly emerging infections along with pneumonia — which is caused by Legionella bacteria; peptic ulcers-associated Helicobacter; Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV); Chlamydia-caused atherosclerosis; and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS)-associated Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).

Verhoef said that people who had frequent contact with animals would be more susceptible to zoonotic diseases.

“It’s more risky for people who live in close proximity with animals than those who live without animals,” he said.

Thus, creating more hygienic and less crowded settlements is likely to be an effective preventive measure in combating zoonotic disease, including bird flu, as the transmission of viruses from poultry to humans is far more common than transmission from paracites living on wild animals.

Research and Technology Minister Gusti M. Hatta said that controlling tropical infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, hepatitis, HIV, dengue, bird flu and malaria, should be the focus of efforts in developing health and medical science and technology.

“Reducing the spread of malaria is one of our health targets under the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs),” said Gusti.

The government is aiming to reduce malarial cases to one per 1,000 people from two per 1,000 people by 2015.

Despite a decrease in cases, malaria still poses a major health threat in Indonesia.

“We still don’t have effective antimalarial drugs due to the rapid mutation of [malaria] viruses. Furthermore, we still don’t know which vector spreads the virus to humans,” said Din Syafruddin, a clinical microbiologist at the Eijkman Institute.

Citing a study, he said that of 80 Anopheles mosquito species in the world, 22 species were suspected as vectors of malaria in Indonesia.

“We should identify which one is the most influencing vector, or whether they are already insecticide-resistant. To develop a more accurate antimalaria program, we need to be able to identify the vector’s track,” Din told the Post.

Being self-sufficient for years in producing quinine, a drug commonly used to treat malaria, Indonesia is currently still importing the most-effective antimalarial drug called “Artemisinin”.

“Many malarial paracites are quinine-resistant. We can still use quinine pills in some areas. But for certain areas, such as Kalimantan and Papua, we need new-generation drugs,” Amin Soebandrio, senior advisor for health and medicine at the Research and Technology Ministry, told the Post.

Artemisinin is extracted from a plant called Artemisia annua, a popular herb in Chinese traditional medicine. It can grow only in chill and mountainous areas.

“To be self-sufficient in producing artemisinin, we need at least 50 hectares of land, and the local government of Tawangmangu, Central Java, has agreed to provide land for Artemisia annua cultivation,” said Amin.