By Andi Abdussalam
Jakarta, April 28 (ANTARA) - As suspected swine flu cases have reached Australia and New Zealand while at least 100 human deaths have been reported in North America, Indonesia is now alerting its citizens and taking the necessary steps to prevent the spread of the disease in the country.
In Jakarta, Secretary-General of ASEAN Surin Pitsuwan has directed his officials to convene the ASEAN Secretariat Working Group to monitor and assess the current situation and plan immediate actions.
The ASEAN Secretariat will closely monitor the situation and work closely with the ASEAN Member States and partner organizations to take appropriate measures including the effective sharing of information and strengthening of cross border collaboration.
Following the World Health Organization (WHO)'s declaration of the swine influenza outbreak as a public health emergency of international concern (PHIC), President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono called for swift and correct measures to deal with its potential spread.
As preventive measures, Indonesia temporarily stops importing pigs and installed swine flu surveillance devices in ten entry points of airports and seaports. "We must take swift and correct actions. We must really start to do everything necessary, including controlling and checking planes from the US and Mexico as well as other countries that have been contaminated by the disease," President Yudhoyono told an unscheduled limited cabinet meeting on Monday.
All ministries are alerted and called on not to treat the matter lightly although it has not yet spread to Asia. The health minister must take anticipatory measures so that the people are prepared in case the disease spread to the country.
Coordinating Minister for People Welfare has said the government is prepared to anticipate the disease through simulations that have been carried out when dealing with bird flu. As the death rate in bird flu cases was higher than in swine flu cases he said simulations for dealing with bird flu were considered sufficient.
According to the WHO, the H1N1 swine virus can spread fast. But the moves to prevent its spread must not be overdone so as not to cause panic. "We do it as usual but everyone must be prepared," President Yudhoyono said.
Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari meanwhile called on the people to remain calm. "The swine influenza which is caused by the H1N1 virus in those countries occurs in the fall and winter but not in the summer. In Indonesia it is hot all the time and therefore we hope an epidemic will not happen in our country," she said.
Although no swine flu case has so far been reported in Indonesia, the government has an adequate capacity to anticipate it. Since the outbreak of bird flu in Indonesia in 2005, the government has made every possible effort to anticipate it and to prevent it from spreading nationwide.
After all, the government has prepared various supporting facilities including public health clinics, hospitals, laboratories, influenza surveillance networks, communication networks among related parties, and training for hospital staff and volunteers.
"We are considered to have made progress in bird flu management, and we have conducted bird-flu handling simulations several times. And our ability to manage bird flu epidemics can also be used to anticipate the spread of other diseases such as swine flu," Aburizal Bakrie said meanwhile.
The other effort made by the Indonesian government is intensifying surveillance in pig farming center regions. Bakrie said that actually, this disease exists in Indonesia but does not attack human victims.
"In spite of this fact, preventive steps needs to be taken. Regions with high pig population will continue to be monitored. Monitoring will be carried out on Pigs or human," Bakrie said.
Intensive surveillance on the wine flue in pig farming regions will be carried out by reactivating the existing monitoring means in bird flu bases.
"Intensive surveillance will be carried out on pig farming centers, whose number I think is small. We will reactivate 84 sentinels now already available to handle the matter so that they would send us data," Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said.
She said that the government would provide the needed equipment and resources for sentinels at hospitals in order to increase alertness over the possible spread of swine flue virus which in North America had mutated and could fast spread from human to human.
In the meantime, Director General for Disease Control of the Ministry of Health, Tjandra Yoga Aditama said that experts had detected the presence of a virus strain of type A flu, sub-type of H1N1 virus, which infected human and pigs.
"The H1NI virus causes common flu. But because the strain of the H1N1 virus which spread in Mexico is different from the strain of common H1N1 virus which infected humans and pigs, it spread fast and is expected to have mutated," Aditama said. (T.A014/A/H-NG/f001) 28-04-2009 10:43:36
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