Bird flu supplies to Indonesia, Sri Lanka on alert
Japan was handing over emergency medical supplies to Indonesia today to help tackle a bird flu outbreak that has killed four people in the sprawling archipelago, officials said.
Much of the equipment will be used to upgrade laboratories so that health officials can identify and track down the origin of the virus.
A high-speed refrigerated microcentrifuge, personal protective gear and agents for diagnosis were unloaded from trucks today, said an Indonesian health ministry official.
“The Japanese government is very concerned, just like many other foreign governments, about bird flu,” Erna Tresnaningshi told reporters. “They don’t want the virus to spread to their countries.”
Meanwhile, a top Sri Lankan ornithologist warned today that the tropical island nation, where hundreds of thousands of migratory birds spend October to March, is at risk from the virus.
Dozens of health workers have been trained to deal with bird flu cases, and the country has imported masks and other protective equipment.
“Definitely there is a risk,” said ornithologist Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne, a day after the government announced a temporary ban on poultry imports from bird flu-affected countries.
“It is difficult to quantify the risk, but it is important that the public are made aware not to handle dead birds in any way,” said Wijeyeratne, who has written four books on Sri Lanka’s wildlife and heads an organisation that promotes ecotourism.
About 150 migratory bird species winter in the shorelines, swamps, lakes and forests of Sri Lanka, an island of 19 million people.
“The migrant birds are believed to funnel themselves (to Sri Lanka) from very widely separated populations in eastern Asia and western Asia,” Wijeyeratne said.
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