January 26, 2012

East Java on alert against bird flu

Authorities in the province of East Java are preparing for possible outbreaks of bird flu in light of a recent case reported in Jakarta, Indonesia. 

East Java is one of the broiler and egg production centres in Indonesia.

The Head of the Agency of Animal Husbandry of East Java, Suparwoko Adisumarto, said that they have prepared about three million doses of bird flu vaccine for poultry and 133,000 litres of disinfectants. These vaccines and disinfectants will be distributed to 38 districts in East Java, according to Adisumarto.

Adisumarto added that they would also optimise their LDCC (Local Disease Control Centre) team to prevent bird flu in these areas.

"The LDCC team of 250 people will directly monitor backyard and commercial poultry. They will report their findings to PDSR (Participatory Disease Surveillance and Response) team," he said.

In 2011, the agency noted that there was as many as 53 cases of bird flu in the territory with a total of 17,139 birds being culled.

The OIE (The World Organisation for Animal Health) considers the prevalence of the H5N1 virus in Indonesia as endemic and unlikely to be contained, given the epidemiology which concludes that the source of the outbreaks is largely due to the illegal movement of animals.