Some of the world's top experts onbird flu met in Jakarta on Wednesday to
discuss concern over possible human transmission on the largest cluster in Karo,
North Sumatra and to map out a strategy for Indonesia to fight the outbreak.
Scientists from the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
(U.S. CDC), European Center for Disease Control (ECDC) among others, would
consult with the Indonesian government to make a strategy to control the avian
influenza virus, said a press release issued by an Indonesian agency of bird flu
control.
The meeting was held a month after Indonesia grappled with the largest bird
flu cluster death in a remote farming area in Sumatra island and amid the rising
number of death in the outbreak.
Seven people linked by blood died of bird flu in the province last month.
Indonesia has recorded 39 deaths out of 53 contracted people cased by the
highly pathogenic virus of H5N1.
"We don't completely understand what was happening in Indonesia, what
changes, so it is important to try to get some understanding about what
changes," Regional Manager Emergency Center for trans-boundary Animal Disease of
the FAO, Laurence J Gleeson told Xinhuaon the sidelines of the meeting.
He said there was distinct lack of flow of information about the largest
cluster death in Karo, North Sumatra, which has raised response from the
international community.
"When this occurred in Karo, there was a lot of international concern about
what is happening in Indonesia, and there was a very distinct lack of flow of
information," he said.
He said the meeting wants to put together the efforts to stop the outbreak
from animal and human sides.
An investigation into the largest cluster has been completed, but the result
has been unpublished yet, according to a director of the Indonesian Health
Ministry Nyoman Kandun.
However, the WHO Technical Officer Steven Bjorge said that it was not the
human-to -human transmission now, but the sustainability of and the spread of
the virus.
"It is not human to human transmission as the important thing, it is whether
or not it becomes sustainable and sporadic, every cluster that occurred so far
has been contained in one small family group. That the situation is still seen
in Indonesia as well," he told Xinhua.