November 29, 2005

Shortage of veterinarians in Indonesia hurts bird flu surveillance

Indonesia lacked an adequate number of veterinarians to assist in grassroots surveillance of H5N1 avian influenza outbreaks, an agriculture ministry official said Tuesday.

"One of the challenges (to surveillance) is the number of veterinarians," the Ministry of Agriculture's director general of livestock production, Mathur Riady, told reporters.

Minister of Agriculture Anton Apriyantono said Tuesday his ministry would set up health posts in "endemic" H5N1 avian influenza outbreak areas, including Jakarta and West Java province.

Each health post would be staffed by a veterinarian and a "veterinarian paramedic", but sourcing adequate numbers of trained staff would be problematic, Riady indicated, without elaborating.

The health posts are likely part of a H5N1 "village alert" system mentioned Monday by Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

H5N1 has killed more than 60 people in Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand since late 2003. Indonesia has recorded seven H5N1 fatalities out of a total of 12 cases since July, according to updated World Health Organization data issued Saturday.

International health officials warned that Indonesia might rival Cambodia and Vietnam as a weak link in global efforts to prevent the emergence of an easily transmissible human strain of the H5N1 virus, which could spawn a deadly pandemic.