[Kabar-indonesia] update: Bird flu found in pigs in Indonesia's Bali

[Joyo at aol.com]

also: Indonesia bans poultry meal imports from Spain

Bird flu found in pigs in Indonesia's Bali

JAKARTA, October 9 (Reuters) - The H5N1 bird flu virus has infected
pigs on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, a senior agriculture
ministry official said on Monday.

"There were two pigs that were infected by bird flu in Bali. These
were old cases that happened last July," Musni Suatmodjo, agriculture
ministry director of animal health, told Reuters.

Koran Tempo newspaper had reported on the weekend that a team from the
veterinary faculty at Udayana University had discovered avian
influenza infected two pigs in the regencies of Gianyar and Tabanan in
Bali.

It was not clear if the pigs died.

Pigs are a concern because they are susceptible to many of the viruses
that infect humans. Swines can act as mixing vessels in which genetic
material from avian flu viruses can mix with human influenza viruses,
potentially producing new and deadly strains for which humans have no
immunity.

I Gusti Putu Suwandi, head of the Tabanan agriculture office, said
there have not been new cases of avian influenza in the area since
July.

"As for the pigs' cases, we haven't received a formal report of the
finding from the university," Suwandi told Reuters by telephone.

The agriculture ministry's Suatmodjo said bird flu had been detected
in 30 out of 33 provinces in the country, with the latest cases in
North Sulawesi province.

He said that although that was an increase from 29 provinces last
year, the percentage of deaths in poultry was lower thanks to better
vaccination and other control measures.

"The number of death cases in poultry due to bird flu were relatively
small as commercial farms have done proper vaccination and
biosecurity, but the main problems remain on the backyard farms,"
Suatmodjo said, referring to the many Indonesians who keep a handful
of chickens at their homes.

Indonesia has become one of the frontlines in the battle against the
disease. So far, 52 people have died of bird flu, the highest of any
country, with the majority of deaths occurring since the beginning of
this year.

Worldwide, 148 people have died of bird flu since 2003.

Although the human death toll has climbed, the Indonesian government
has resisted mass culling of birds, citing the expense and
impracticality in a huge, populous country where keeping a few
chickens or ducks in backyards is common.

Culling at selective farms and their immediate surroundings has been
the preferred method.

Millions of chickens and other fowl in Indonesia have died from the
disease or been killed to prevent its spread since it first surfaced
in the archipelago in late 2003.

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Indonesia bans poultry meal imports from Spain

JAKARTA, October 9 (Reuters) - Indonesia has decided to freeze all
permits and ban imports of poultry-based animal feed from Spain after
importers misused permits to ship in meat-based feed, a senior
agriculture ministry official said on Monday.

Turni Rusli Sjamsudin, agriculture ministry director of the veterinary
health community, told Reuters the decision was aimed at protecting
the country's beef industry from contracting mad cow disease following
cases of illegal meat meal imports from Spain.

"Importers have misused their permits by importing meat bone meal from
Spain, which is illegal, as the country still has a high number of mad
cow disease cases," Sjamsudin said.

He said so far this year the agriculture ministry had issued 77
permits to 12 importers to import poultry meat meal from Spain.

As of July 31, Spain had experienced 41 cases of bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE) or mad cow disease in 2006, according to
information from World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) posted on
its Web site www.oie.int .

Jakarta imports beef and beef products only from Australia and New
Zealand after the government reimposed a temporary import ban on the
United States and European Union in June 2005 following the discovery
of mad cow disease there.

Sjamsudin said there has been at least two cases of misused import
permits in the last two weeks.

"The last case happened last week in Tanjung Perak port when custom
authorities discovered 47 containers of meat bone meal from Spain
which were labelled as poultry meal," he said, referring to a port in
Indonesia's second biggest city of Surabaya in East Java.

"The document stated the origin of the meal was from Australia but
after a cross check and investigation we found out that it was from
Spain."

Sjamsudin added the consignment will be destroyed or returned by the importer.

At the end of September, Indonesia seized 181 containers of bone meal
from Spain that were labelled as chicken meal after tests showed it
was made of beef.

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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