Bird flu alertness status declared in Balikpapan

Antara News, Monday, October 4, 2010 23:57 WIB

Balikpapan, E Kalimantan  (ANTARA News) - The East Kalimantan city of Balikpapan government has declared the bird flu alertness status since Sunday following the death of 96 chickens last September.

"Those dead chickens have positively been infected by bird flu virus," Mayor of Balikpapan City Imdaad Hamid said in response to the sudden death of 96 chickens in four villages.

Hamid said the infected chickens belonged to local residents of four villages -- Gunung Bahagia, Sepinggan, Manggar, and Prapatan.

The bird flu virus had so far infected chickens, not birds, and there were no reports of fatalities, he said.

"Therefore, the status that we declare is watching bird flu but if there have been human casualties, we shall increase the status to `extraordinary`," he said.

In anticipating the unexpected eventualities, the city`s government had intensified surveillance and instructed the burning of all bird flu-infected chickens, he said.

The related authorities had even activated check points at such seaports as Kariangau and Kampung Baru to ensure the flows of healthy chickens into and out of the city areas, he said.Various parts of Indonesia remain vulnerable to the bird flu cases.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), avian influenza or "bird flu" is a contagious disease of animals caused by viruses that normally infect only birds and, less commonly, pigs.

The WHO has warned that the infection with avian influenza viruses could spread very rapidly through poultry flocks.

Over these past few days, the bird flu viruses had attacked a few hundreds of chicken in Pademawu Timur village. The number of infected chickens tended to increase, he said.

Indonesia has been dealing with the bird flu cases since 2005. However, this H5N1 typed influenza is also recorded to have attacked chicken and birds in other Asian countries, such as Thailand, Cambodia, China, and Viet Nam.