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Experts discuss bird flu issue in Indonesia
22/6/2006 10:50

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An investigation into the largest cluster has been completed, but the result has been unpublished yet, according to a director of the Indonesian Health Ministry Nyoman Kandun.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.



Xinhua News