Indonesia medias appear to be quiet from flu news. Below is an article about sudden death in apparently healthy cats. The incident caused fear of zoonotic infection among local people.
Tasik, West Java – People in Kampung Galumpit, Desa Purwarahayu, Kecamatan Taraju, Kabupaten Tasik have buried dozen of cats until this news released. Those cats were found suddenly died.
This incident caused fear among locals to any possibility of animal derived infectious disease infection to human such as bird flu or swine flu.
According to local police officer, Juanda, about ten cats were reported suddenly died in Kampung Galumpit, while some other deaths were not reported by locals. The same incidents were also reported from the, Paguyuhan, a village next to Kampung Galumpit.
People suggested this as an uncommon situation. Occasionally, cats might get intoxication by consuming pesticide used to kill rats by farmers which is usually kept at rice fields. But this practice is not common during dry season. Moreover, those cats were housed and rarely going out.
Following to this incident, people requested Livestock Service to do further investigation to prevent any possible transmission to human.
Source: Indonesia local online newspaper, Priangan Online.
http://prianganonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=242&Itemid=37
===AvianInfluenzaIndonesia===
October 2, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Hi Ida, this is indeed a very interesting article/story. How did you translate from original article and have you read anything else similar in any other news areas? Please follow up on this one if you can, would be interested in hearing results of the autopsies on the cats. Machi
October 2, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Hey Machi,
Yes sometimes I heard about this kinda stories. But mostly no further lab confirmation done. For sure I’ll update whenever I find something.
October 3, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Thank you Ida, I think a lot of people are speculating rabies or something similar. Also there is not much concern at this point of a H1N1 infection and even if there was doctors are not worried about transmission from cats to people….however…they are discouraging people from allowing their cats to be outdoors. lol good luck on that one. Anyway thanks again and look forward to any further news you come up with on this one!
October 8, 2009 at 9:09 am
Ida, do you know anything about a “new virus” training seminar in lampung?
October 9, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Hello Ryan,
That new virus they’re talking about is the novel H1N1. By the way currently I’m away again. SO probably I can’t do updates pretty often.
Feel free to contact me.
October 21, 2009 at 6:09 am
Ida, what is going on here it says several people and chickens died???????
http://www.harianrakyatbengkulu.com/ver3/mod.php?mod=publisher&op=viewarticle&cid=13&artid=5139