The Jakarta Globe, Dessy Sagita, February 20, 2009
Avian influenza has struck a second district in Bali despite efforts to contain the spread of the disease on the island, the district’s animal husbandry, marine and fisheries agency said on Friday.
I Gusti Ngurah Sandjada, the head of the agency in Jembrana district in western Bali, said the outbreak was discovered after 52 chickens in the village of Banyubiru died over the course of four days.
“We immediately conducted a rapid test and found that the chickens were infected with the H5N1 virus,” Sandjada said.
Following the discovery, Sandjaja said the agency banned the transportation of poultry in and out of the village and had been culling the bird population and disinfecting cages since Thursday.
He said the agency was still concerned because a number of birds from Banyubiru had been sold to neighboring villages.
To head off further spread of the virus, the agency also conducted disinfecting drives in the nearby Gilimanuk market and chicken slaughterhouses. Dozens of chickens had died recently in the Arum Gilimanuk area.
Bird flu first emerged on the island in Jembrana district in 2007-08, causing the deaths of hundreds of chickens and infecting some local residents. One person died from the virus.
Sandjaja said the local government was concerned because the latest outbreak was the second to strike in less than 10 days. Earlier this month, a bird flu outbreak emerged in Badung district, causing 133 chickens to be destroyed. One person suffered bird-flu-like symptoms after contact with sick poultry but later recovered. The Ministry of Health only releases information about suspected cases a few times a year, and test results from that particular case have not yet been released.
Meanwhile, state-run Antara news agency reported on Friday that bird flu cases had been reported in 11 subdistricts in Banyuwangi, at the easternmost tip of Java Island. Since January, 932 chickens were killed by the virus, the highest number of chicken deaths due to bird flu ever recorded in East Java Province.
Dewa Made Ngurah, the head of the animal husbandry, marine and fisheries agency in Bali’s provincial capital of Denpasar, said that many birds were smuggled from Banyuwangi to Bali despite a 2005 bylaw prohibiting the unregulated flow of poultry in and out of the province.
Indonesia remains the hardest-hit country in the world from the H5N1 virus, with 113 confirmed human deaths out of a total of 139 cases as of Jan. 19, according to the World Health Organization.
The country’s failure to rein in the disease — which is endemic among poultry in the vast majority of the nation’s 33 provinces — has prompted critics to warn that a global pandemic could originate in Indonesia.
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