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Health Ministry Provides U$130 million to Cope with Bird Flu
Antara, Oct 31 04:59
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Ministry of Health has prepared a budget of U$13 million, or about Rp130 billion, to deal with a bird flu pandemic, Minister of Health Siti Fadillah Supari said.
"The U$ 13 million will be spent on the purchase of anti bird flu drugs, monitoring and the procurement of medical instruments and equipment for 44 hospitals across the nation for the treatment of Avian Influenza (AI) patients," she said in Jakarta Sunday night.
She made the remarks after attending a social welfare coordinating meeting to discuss how to overcome bird flu presided over by Social Welfare Coordinating Minister Alwi Shihab.
The meeting was also attended by Minister of Agriculture Anton Apriyantono, the State Minister of State Enterprises, Minister of National Development Planning/Chairperson of the National Development Planning Agency Sri Mulyani, Minister of Trade Mari Elka Pangestu and Environment Minister Rachmad Witoelar.
According to the health minister, the money had already been allocated under an initial planning strategy on handling a bird flu pandemic drawn out by the health ministry in association with the World Health Organization (WHO).
She said Indonesia now has 70,000 tamiflu tablets to stem the spread of the bird flu virus in the human body. The ministry of health will try to procure more of the tamiflu tablets bringing the total to 22 million tablets.
The addition, she said, will be obtained if Indonesia faces a pandemic and efforts will also be made to produce the drug locally under an agreement reached at a meeting of world health ministers in Canada early last week.
She pointed out that up till now no human-to-human bird flu virus transmission had taken place, but only poultry-to-humans and poultry-to-poultry transmissions.
She also called on the public not to panic in facing a bird flu outbreak, because it is very easy to prevent, namely by clean and healthy living like washing one`s hands before eating, cooking poultry meat in a temperature of at least 70 degrees Centrigrade and cleaning up and removing their droppings, cages and dens as well as their saliva with disinfectants on a routine basis. (*)
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