Sally Furniss
Well-known member
Indonesia praises backyard poultry ban as bird-flu deaths reach 66
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/42124.html
Jakarta - A senior Indonesian health official said Tuesday that the government's ban on urban backyard poultry farms was working to contain the bird-flu virus, even as the deadly H5N1 strain claimed a 66th victim. "It certainly would have gotten worse if we didn't have that policy," I Nyoman Kandun, director general for infectious diseases at the Indonesian Health Ministry, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
"Of course, you can't expect a zero result so fast, but this absolutely [helps] avoid a pandemic," he said.
The latest victim, a 20-year-old woman, died in hospital Monday in the East Java capital of Surabaya after undergoing treatment for a week, Kandun said.
"She got it from dead chickens in her neighbourhood," he told dpa.
It was Indonesia's 66th death - the world's highest toll - from 86 cases and its eighth death in 2007.
The country with the second-highest number of deaths is Vietnam with 42, but it has had none in more than 15 months.
Alarmed by a sudden spike in bird-flu deaths in January, the Indonesian government banned backyard poultry farms in residential areas in Jakarta and nine provinces.
The ban, which started in mid-January, was later extended across all of Java, one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
The government also placed tight restrictions on the movement and sale of poultry and poultry products and is preparing more hospitals to treat human cases of the H5N1 virus.
Most bird-flu victims globally had direct or indirect contact with sick birds, but scientists fear the virus could mutate into a form easily transmissible among humans, sparking a global pandemic that could kill millions.
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/42124.html
Jakarta - A senior Indonesian health official said Tuesday that the government's ban on urban backyard poultry farms was working to contain the bird-flu virus, even as the deadly H5N1 strain claimed a 66th victim. "It certainly would have gotten worse if we didn't have that policy," I Nyoman Kandun, director general for infectious diseases at the Indonesian Health Ministry, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
"Of course, you can't expect a zero result so fast, but this absolutely [helps] avoid a pandemic," he said.
The latest victim, a 20-year-old woman, died in hospital Monday in the East Java capital of Surabaya after undergoing treatment for a week, Kandun said.
"She got it from dead chickens in her neighbourhood," he told dpa.
It was Indonesia's 66th death - the world's highest toll - from 86 cases and its eighth death in 2007.
The country with the second-highest number of deaths is Vietnam with 42, but it has had none in more than 15 months.
Alarmed by a sudden spike in bird-flu deaths in January, the Indonesian government banned backyard poultry farms in residential areas in Jakarta and nine provinces.
The ban, which started in mid-January, was later extended across all of Java, one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
The government also placed tight restrictions on the movement and sale of poultry and poultry products and is preparing more hospitals to treat human cases of the H5N1 virus.
Most bird-flu victims globally had direct or indirect contact with sick birds, but scientists fear the virus could mutate into a form easily transmissible among humans, sparking a global pandemic that could kill millions.