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Decline in bird flu cases, Indonesia reports :: latest
Human bird flu deaths in Indonesia have slowed markedly over the last three months, a drop local officials attributed today to a more aggressive fight against the virus.
But the World Health Organisation cautioned that the fall ? a rare piece of good news in the country worst hit by the H5N1 virus ? did not yet indicate a trend and refused to speculate on possible reasons for it.
Health Minister Siti Fadillah said the success was due to a more forceful vaccination and culling policy which led the government to recently declare 14 of its 33 provinces free of the virus in poultry stocks.
She also cited an ongoing public education campaign.
?The drop in cases is because of the success of the government ? which is now unified and moving quickly,? she said. ?If the birds are free of the virus, so are humans.?
The virulent H5N1 form of bird flu began devastating Asian poultry stocks in 2003, but Indonesia did not record its first human case until two years later. Its number of cases quickly soared, and it has now logged 74 human infections, 57 of them fatal.
International experts have accused the country of not doing enough to tackle the virus, which experts fear may mutate into a form that could spread easily between humans and potentially kill millions globally.
?I thank God that the cases are going down, but we cannot celebrate yet,? said Nyoman Kandun, director-general of communicable disease control at the health ministry, adding it would take at least three more months of declining cases to start believing it may be permanent.
Vietnam, the second worst-hit country by the virus, has not reported any human infections since November 2005, although this week it reported its first outbreak in poultry in a year. Thailand has reported three human fatalities this year, while China?s last reported case was in July.
Later, a South Korean agriculture ministry official announced plans to cull tens of thousands of poultry after a new outbreak of the bird flu virus.
The outbreak ? the fourth bird flu case in a month in the country ? was caused by a ?highly pathogenic? type of bird flu but it remains unclear whether it is the virulent H5N1 virus.
Decline in bird flu cases, Indonesia reports :: latest
Human bird flu deaths in Indonesia have slowed markedly over the last three months, a drop local officials attributed today to a more aggressive fight against the virus.
But the World Health Organisation cautioned that the fall ? a rare piece of good news in the country worst hit by the H5N1 virus ? did not yet indicate a trend and refused to speculate on possible reasons for it.
Health Minister Siti Fadillah said the success was due to a more forceful vaccination and culling policy which led the government to recently declare 14 of its 33 provinces free of the virus in poultry stocks.
She also cited an ongoing public education campaign.
?The drop in cases is because of the success of the government ? which is now unified and moving quickly,? she said. ?If the birds are free of the virus, so are humans.?
The virulent H5N1 form of bird flu began devastating Asian poultry stocks in 2003, but Indonesia did not record its first human case until two years later. Its number of cases quickly soared, and it has now logged 74 human infections, 57 of them fatal.
International experts have accused the country of not doing enough to tackle the virus, which experts fear may mutate into a form that could spread easily between humans and potentially kill millions globally.
?I thank God that the cases are going down, but we cannot celebrate yet,? said Nyoman Kandun, director-general of communicable disease control at the health ministry, adding it would take at least three more months of declining cases to start believing it may be permanent.
Vietnam, the second worst-hit country by the virus, has not reported any human infections since November 2005, although this week it reported its first outbreak in poultry in a year. Thailand has reported three human fatalities this year, while China?s last reported case was in July.
Later, a South Korean agriculture ministry official announced plans to cull tens of thousands of poultry after a new outbreak of the bird flu virus.
The outbreak ? the fourth bird flu case in a month in the country ? was caused by a ?highly pathogenic? type of bird flu but it remains unclear whether it is the virulent H5N1 virus.
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