Indonesia says long battle ahead against bird flu

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia has seen a drop in the number of bird flu infections in humans this year, although the fatality rate has risen and the country faces a long battle against the virus, a government official said on Tuesday.

Indonesia has had 115 confirmed human cases of bird flu and 92 human deaths, the highest number globally, since the first cases of the deadly H5N1 virus emerged in chickens in the Southeast Asian country four years ago and in humans in 2005.

Bayu Krisnamurthi, head of the national bird flu commission, said there was now greater public awareness of the disease.

"Unfortunately, on a less than happy note, I have to say that Indonesia's battle against bird flu is not over, and the battle will continue for a long time," he told a news conference.

More needed to be done to contain sporadic outbreaks in poultry and on surveillance to spot sick chickens, Krisnamurthi said.

Many flocks of poultry did not show signs of the disease, even though they were carriers of the virus, while the rapid movement of fowl and humans sometimes made it difficult to trace the source of virus after human infection, he added.

"There were four cases in the past four months where we found a positive human case, but were not able to trace it to sick chickens," Krisnamurthi said.

"We need to intensify our search... unfortunately bird flu is endemic in this country, so the virus is everywhere."

Although bird flu remains mostly an animal disease, experts fear that the virus could mutate into a form easily passed from person to person and sweep millions.

A United Nations and World Bank report released in November said controlling the disease in animals was "at the root of preventing human infections and reducing the probability of a pandemic".

Millions of people in the huge developing country live in close proximity to poultry, keeping backyard fowl to supplement income and for eggs and meat.

Indonesia has seen a drop in human cases so far this year to 40 from 55 confirmed cases in the previous year, but the fatality rate has risen to 87.5 percent from 81.8 percent in 2006, the commission's data showed.

(Reporting by Adhityani Arga; Editing by Ed Davies and Sanjeev Miglani)