C.A. Nidom, the university researcher in Indonesia

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[SIZE=-1][SIZE=-1]Indonesia finds bird flu in pigs[/SIZE]
May 14, 2005
Associated Press
JAKARTA, Indonesia --

The government and scientists were cited as saying Saturday that Indonesian researchers have found a strain of bird flu in pigs on the densely populated island of Java, raising fears the virus could more easily spread to humans.

The story says that the scientist who made the discovery identified the strain found in the pigs as H5N1, the same version of the virus that has jumped from chickens to humans elsewhere in Southeast Asia, killing 36 in Vietnam, 12 in Thailand and four from Cambodia.

The story adds that until now, human infections have been traced to direct contact with infected poultry or poultry waste, and millions of chickens and other fowl have been slaughtered in attempts to stem the disease. But last fall, the World Health Organization urged scientists to examine other mammals, in particular pigs.

C.A. Nidom, the university researcher who discovered the infection in pigs, was cited as saying he had found the virus in the blood of 10 pigs out of 20 he checked and that a laboratory in Tokyo conducted the tests, adding, "I found it in the snout to begin with, but I was doubtful whether this meant they were truly infected. So I then proved it by finding a matching strain in the blood."

Dr. Nana Supriatna, an expert at the Ministry of Agriculture, was cited as confirming the discovery but declined to give any more details, adding that officials were meeting Saturday to discuss the development.

Nidom was further cited as saying the samples were taken from pigs living 100 yards away from a chicken farm on Java island that was struck by bird flu last year. None of the pigs showed any signs of illnesses, he said.

http://archives.foodsafetynetwork.ca/animalnet/2005/5-2005/animalnet_may_15.htm#story4
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Re: C.A. Nidom, the university researcher in Indonesia

Bird flu identified in Indonesian pigs

• 16:17 14 April 2005
• NewScientist.com news service
• Debora MacKenzie

Indonesian scientists have found the H5N1 bird flu virus in a pig. The strain has infected poultry across east Asia, and killed at least 51 people so far.
Scientists fear pigs could act as a ?mixing vessel? in which a human pandemic strain could evolve, because the animals can harbour both human and avian flu viruses.


But while suspected, such hybridisation has never been proven. Furthermore, New Scientist has learned of preliminary results from scientists in the US that suggest pigs might not be able to transmit H5N1 flu to one another.


Java was the worst-affected part of Indonesia during 2004?s H5N1 bird flu outbreak. But by slaughtering and vaccinating poultry, Indonesia stopped the outbreak in October - with no reported human cases. But in April 2005, bird flu struck poultry throughout Java once again, mainly in village-based ?backyard? flocks.


Indonesia offers free vaccination for such flocks. But vaccinated birds can still harbour and spread the virus unless they are strictly monitored for infection. Amin Soebandrio, a microbiologist and Indonesia?s assistant deputy minister for health sciences, told New Scientist that while larger farms do such monitoring, smallholders cannot.


Now C A Nidom, of Airlangga University in Surabaya, in east Java, has found the H5N1 virus in throat swabs and blood samples from a pig in Surabaya. It is the same ?highly pathogenic? variant that causes severe disease in chickens. And, says Soebandrio, the isolated virus?s gene for a crucial surface protein, haemagglutinin, was more than 98% identical to samples taken from infected Indonesian chickens and quail.
Bird-human hybrid

Traces of H5N1 infection had previously been reported in one pig in Vietnam and two in China. Pigs are of concern because they can be infected by both bird flu viruses and flu viruses from mammals. A hybrid bird-human virus could have a haemagglutinin from birds that human immune systems will not recognise, and genes from human-adapted flu that will make the hybrid highly contagious in people.


?It is almost certainly true that viruses of different species can mix in pigs - pigs have numerous ?hybrid? viruses,? says Richard Webby of St Jude?s Children?s Research Hospital in Memphis, US. ?But the pig as a mixing vessel for human flu pandemics is just a hypothesis.?


The pandemics of 1957 and 1968, which killed millions, did seem to result from the mixing of bird flu strains with mammalian flu, although where this occurred is not known. However, the even greater 1918 pandemic did not.


Robert Webster of St. Jude?s told a meeting on biosecurity in Lyon, France in March that his lab has found that H5N1 grows well in pigs, making hybridisation theoretically possible. But it might not get far - infected pigs, Webster told New Scientist, do not pass H5N1 to each other. This means relatively few pigs will catch it.


Poultry may be more important for the virus?s evolution. And this week Vietnam announced that it had found H5N1 infection in 71% of farmed ducks in the crowded Mekong Delta, where there have been many cases of human infection.


Ducks seem able to harbour the virus without showing symptoms, and in Vietnam many live in the open where they can spread the virus. So far Vietnam has not vaccinated poultry, but the Vietnamese agriculture ministry announced in March that it would start vaccinating ducks in the Mekong delta for H5N1 flu in April.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/bird-flu/dn7268

 

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Re: C.A. Nidom, the university researcher in Indonesia

May 26 20:55
Human-to-human bird flu infection has occured in...
[FONT=&quot]<!-- google_ad_section_start -->Human-to-human bird flu infection has occured in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1>Indonesia
http://www.antara.co.id/en/seenws/?id=13350</st1></st1:country-region>[/FONT]


<st1:city w:st="on">[FONT=&quot]Surabaya[/FONT]</st1:city>[FONT=&quot], E Java (ANTARA News)[/FONT][FONT=&quot] - Bird flu (Avian Influenza/AI) researcher Dr CA Nidom MS said he was convinced that human-to-human bird flu infection had been taking place in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1>Indonesia</st1></st1:country-region>.

"I am convinced human-to-human infection has been taking place because studies have found the development of H3N2 and H1N1 strains of bird flu virus which originated from H5N1 virus. Much more, flow-to-human infection cannot yet be proven since the death of Iwan in Tangerang," he said on the sidelines of a seminar on bird flu here on Friday.

Nidom who is a researcher of the Tropical Disease Centre (TDC) of the University of Airlangga (Unair)`s Medical School, made the remarks in response to a statement by a WHO official that bird flu infection from humans to humans had been found in the village of Kubu Sembelang, Tanah Karo district, North Sumatra, Indonesia.

WHO`s epidemiologists have conducted field observations and found no sources that could be suspected as the sources of the infection. Seven of the nine dead vitims were cluster victims who suffered from the same symptions, WHO spokesman Peter Cordingley said in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1>lace w:st="on">Manila</st1>lace></st1:city> on Thursday.

But the WHO conclusion was denied by Health Minister Siti Fadila Supari.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]strain of virus that infected the nine victims has not yet been found. And there is no proof of epidemiological human-to-human infection," the minister said.

According to Nidom, who is also a lecturer at the Unair`s Medical School, the WHO official`s statement was logical because the avian influenza was just like a common flu so that there was no need to be panicked.

"I have dislosed this conclusion in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1>Pontianak</st1></st1:city>last April," he added. [/FONT][FONT=&quot](*)<!-- google_ad_section_end --> [/FONT]

 

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Re: C.A. Nidom, the university researcher in Indonesia

From the Agonist
Posted by Doctor Niman

AVIAN INFLUENZA - EASTERN ASIA (44): INDONESIA, PIGS: REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
*****************************************************************************
A ProMED-mail post
<http://www.promedmail.org>
ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases
<http://www.isid.org>

[1]
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005
From: Irene Lai <iwlai@attglobal.net>
Source: Kompas, 9 Apr 2005 [translated from Indonesian, edited]


Indonesia: Avian Influenza Virus Identified in Pigs
---------------------------------------------------
Ca Nidom, a molecular biology researcher from [the Centre for]
Tropical Disease Control, Airlangga University, Surabaya, East Java,
has reportedly identified avian influenza virus in throat swabs and
sera of pigs by RT-PCR. [District location not mentioned].

Inactivated RNA isolates have been sent to the Tokyo University,
where 8 fragments (HA, NA, PA, PB1, PB2, M, NP, NS) were sequenced.
Results showed that the virus was [structurally?] similar to the
avian influenza virus from poultry, and is characterised by high
pathogenicity (based on the study regarding the cleavage site).

--
Dr. Irene Lai
International SOS
<iwlai@attglobal.net>

******
[2]
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005
From: Irene Lai <iwlai@attglobal.net>
Source: Kompas, 5 Apr 2005 [5 first paragraphs translated from
Indonesian, edited]
<http://www.kompas.com/kompas%2Dcetak/0504/12/ekonomi/1676599.htm>


Indonesia: Agriculture Department to Investigate Avian Influenza Virus in Pigs
--------------------------------------------------
The Department of Agriculture will study the discovery of avian
influenza virus from infected pigs. The agriculture department will
carry out sampling from several pig farms. More research is needed,
especially regarding the background and route through which the
infection of pigs with avian flu virus took place.

The Minister of Agriculture, Anton Apriyantono, said to the
journalist on Mon, 11 Apr 2005 in Jakarta, that his staff has already
ordered the General Director of Farming Production to investigate
that finding. "We need confirmation because the news is not clear
yet. First, it is not clear where the pigs are originally from, what
is their current location and which type of pigs have been involved".
The General Director of Farming Production will assist the veterinary
investigators in studying samples from pigs. "We are already working
on it", said Anton

As broadcast on Saturday, the molecular biology researcher in
Airlangga University, CA Nidom, discovered the avian influenza virus
in pigs. The finding was based on identification of [DNA/RNA?] and
might be interpreted as indicative for the presence of new avian
influenza cases in Indonesia. "We are responding to that report by
taking samples from pigs in Indonesia. Is it correct that pigs have
been infected? For me this is still the question", he said.

--
Dr. Irene Lai
International SOS
<iwlai@attglobal.net>

[ProMED-mail is grateful to Dr Lai for sending us the above
translated reports. - Mod.AS]

[These reports are somewhat contradictory. On the one hand it is
suggested that the complete genome of an avian influenza virus
isolated from a pig in Indonesia has been sequenced from RT-PCR
fragments, whereas on the other hand the presence of avian influenza
virus infection in pigs in Indonesia has still to be confirmed by
isolation of infectious virus. The serotype of the virus does not
appear to have been established, so it cannot be assumed at this
stage that the virus is the H5N1 East Asian epidemic strain.

However, although the situation is somewhat confused, these reports
cannot be dismissed lightly, because the presence of H5N1 virus in
pigs might increase the risk of adaptation of the epidemic avian
influenza virus to growth and transmission in mammals -- although it
should be emphasized that the role of pigs as mixing vessels in the
generation of pandemic influenza viruses is no more than a
hypothesis. Further information is awaited with some apprehension. -
Mod.CP]

http://discuss.agonist.org/smf/index.php?topic=21217;prev_next=next

 

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Re: C.A. Nidom, the university researcher in Indonesia

<table border="0"><tbody><tr valign="top"><th colspan="1" align="left"><center>

</center>Contents of Volume 47 Number 12, 2003


Virology</th> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td>M.I. Lusida, Surayah, H. Sakugawa,
M. Nagano-Fujii, Soetjipto, Mulyanto,
R. Handajani, Boediwarsono,
P.B. Setiawan, C.A. Nidom,
S. Ohgimoto, and H. Hotta</td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td>T. Nakahara, H. Toriumi, T. Irie,
T. Takahashi, S. Ameyama,
M. Mizukoshi, and A. Kawai

http://www.sanbi.co.jp/capj/47/contents/4712.html
</td></tr></tbody></table>

 

[Snowy Owl]

Re: C.A. Nidom, the university researcher in Indonesia

Indonesia: Avian Influenza Virus Identified in Pigs


Ca Nidom, a molecular biology researcher from the Centre for Tropical Disease Control, Airlangga University, Surabaya, East Java, has reportedly identified avian influenza virus in throat swabs and sera of pigs by RT-PCR. Inactivated RNA isolates have been sent to Tokyo University, where 8 fragments (HA, NA, PA, PB1, PB2, M, NP, NS) were sequenced. Results showed that the virus was (structurally?) similar to the avian influenza virus from poultry, and is characterised by high pathogenicity (based on the study regarding the cleavage site). The serotype of the virus does not appear to have been established, so it cannot be assumed at this stage that the virus is the H5N1 East Asian epidemic strain. (Promed 4/12/05)

http://depts.washington.edu/einet/?a=printArticle&print=375

 

[Snowy Owl]

Re: C.A. Nidom, the university researcher in Indonesia

Human-to-human infection of bird flu taking place in Indonesia, expert
​

JAKARTA, May 26, 2006 -- Indonesian bird flu researcher CA Nidom MS said he was convinced that human-to-human bird flu infection had been taking place in Indonesia, official news agency Antara reported on Friday.

"I am convinced human-to-human infection has been taking place because studies have found the development of H3N2 and H1N1 strains of bird flu virus which originated from H5N1 virus. Much more, fowl-to-human infection cannot yet be proven since the death of Iwan in Tangerang," he said on the sidelines of a seminar on bird flu in Surabaya, East Java, on Friday.

Nidom, a researcher of the Tropical Disease Centre (TDC) of theUniversity of Airlangga (Unair)'s Medical School, made the remarks in response to a statement by a World Health Organization official that bird flu infection from human to human had been found in the village of Kubu Sembelang, Tanah Karo district, North Sumatra, Indonesia.

According to Nidom, who is also a lecturer at the Unair's Medical School, the WHO official's statement was logical because the avian influenza was just like a common flu so that there was no need to be panicked.

"I have disclosed this conclusion in Pontianak last April," he added.

Seven of the nine dead victims were cluster victims who suffered from the same symptoms, WHO spokesman Peter Cordingley said in Manila on Thursday.

But the WHO conclusion was denied by Health Minister Siti Fadila Supari.

"The cluster bird flu case in Tana Karo cannot yet be said a human-to-human bird flu case because proof on the mutation of virus DNA which is identical with the H5N1 strain of virus that infected the nine victims has not yet been found. And there is no proof of epidemiological human-to-human infection," the minister said.

As the disease expands all over the world, experts fear that the virus can mutate into a certain form that easily transmits from human to human, which will kill millions of people.

Some 27 out of 33 provinces in Indonesia have been contracted with bird flu, while human fatality stands at 32 and infections at 43, according to the WHO.

All over the world, the WHO has raised the confirmed human death toll from the H5N1 bird flu strain to 122, while the total number of confirmed human infections since the current outbreak began in 2003 has reached 216.

http://www.humanrights-china.org/news/2006-5-28/Inter2006528102109.htm