Indonesia hosts FAO pilot projects for tackling zoonoses

Workers disassemble chicken coops owned by a resident of Rambutan subdistrict in East Jakarta, where 116 chickens died in March 2016. (kompas.com/Robertus Belarminus)

The Agriculture Ministry and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have designated four areas in Indonesia for pilot projects to contain the spread of zoonoses.

The four places are Bengkalis in Riau, Ketapang in West Kalimantan, Boyolali in Central Java and Minahasa in North Sulawesi, said Andri Jatikusumah, a national technical advisor for One Health and Zoonosis Control of the FAO’s Emergency Center for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) Indonesia in Jakarta on Wednesday.

"We select areas based on the risks and the state of medical infrastructure and the commitment of regional administrations," he added, as reported by Antara.

Zoonoses are contagious diseases like rabies, anthrax and avian influenza (AI) that can spread from animals to human and vice versa.

Andri said the eradication of zoonoses and new emerging infectious diseases (EID) in the four regions would be handled by One Health, an integrative effort of multiple disciplines working locally, nationally and globally to achieve optimal health of people, animals and the environment.

The role of the Agriculture Ministry’s Animal Husbandry and Animal Health Directorate General in the project focuses on three major zoonoses – rabies, anthrax and avian influenza (AI) – and EID.

The head of the Agriculture Ministry’s epidemiology and animal health information system section, Andi Hidayat, said around 75 percent of human diseases spread by microbes, including HIV, influenza such as H1N1, H5N1 and H7N9, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), MERS-CoV, Ebola, Marburg and Nipah, originated from animals. 

Source：The Jakarta Post