In its latest press release issued on Sunday, 19 June 2016, Indonesia’s Director General for the Prevention and Control of Diseases, Mohamad Subuh,underscored that: “Indonesia is NOT a Zika virus endemic area nor is Indonesia infected by the Zika Virus”, reported Antara News.
The Director General stated this in direct response to the Travel Advisory issued by the Government of Australia that “Pregnant women consider postponing travel to Indonesia” including to the popular holiday island of Bali, since “the country is experiencing sporadic transmission of the virus”, as also mentioned on Australian television and social media.
In response, the Ministry of Health of Indonesia emphatically denies the statement, stating that: “Indonesia is NOT a Zika Virus endemic country”.
Only one person has so far been reported infected in the province of Jambi on Sumatra and that is based only on the 2015 analysis of the Eikman Laboratory, the Director General continued.
Whilst, on the report that an Indonesian sailor arriving in Taiwan had been found positively infected by the virus, Indonesia’s Health authorities had immediately inspected the patient’s relatives in Blitar, East Java, and all have been found Zika negative.
Meantime, the Indonesian Government, and specifically the Ministry of Health, has taken all measures to alert and prevent any possible infection of the virus through continuous and thorough inspections of neighbourhoods and the control of mosquito breeding sites around housing and settlements through the cleaning and drying of pots, drums, used tyres and other mosquito breeding grounds.
The Indonesian Health Ministry assures that Zika prevention in Indonesia and its early warning system have been in operation and implemented together with the control of the Dengue Fever vector, and all have thus far proceeded well, closed the press release.
The Zika virus is transmitted primarily by the Aedes Aegypti mosquito which also transmits Dengue Fever, in Indonesia is more popularly known as DBD. Although transmitted by the same species of mosquito it is the virulent Zika Virus, according to scientists, that causes the birth of babies with microcephaly.
(Source :Antara News)
