Tangerang, Banten – Livestock Service of Kabupaten Tangerang denies assumptions of swine flu infection that attacked a family in Curug, Tangerang, was caused by bird flu H5N1-mutated H1N1 or swine flu virus.
“No virus mutation,” said the Head of Animal Health and Veterinary Public Health Division of Livestock Service Kabupaten Tangerang, Mawardi Nasution, on Thursday (16/7).
The swine flu case, Mawardi said, has no relation to sick chickens in Curug farms which were visited by the infected veterinarian. He ensured that W (44) and his family members got H1N1 infection from other source, and not from birds.
According to Mawardi, this suggestion was based on further check done to the birds around Curug area. “No birds tested positive H5N1 either H1N1,” he said.
Regarding to this finding, Mawardi asked Health Service officials to keep on doing surveillance and finding out the source of infection by tracking back the patients activity before he developed illness.
Previously, Vice Mayor of Kabupaten Tangerang, Rano Karno, suspected if the swine flu positive case found in a family resided in Curug, was caused by mutated H5N1 into H1N1 virus.
Rano judged that swine flu case in Tangerang was extraordinary, because it was happened domestically without any report of foreign introduction. In particular, the patient had contact history with sick chickens. “This is worrying us,” said Rano.
Source: Indonesia newspaper, Tempo Interaktif. http://www.tempointeraktif.com/hg/jakarta/2009/07/16/brk,20090716-187494,id.html
===AvianInfluenzaIndonesia===
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