Zoo closes after Bird Flu outbreak

The main zoo in Indonesia’s capital was shut down after 19 of its birds died of the avian influenza that has killed four people in the sprawling country, officials said today.

The zoo will be closed for at least three weeks pending an investigation. Birds that test positive for the disease will be killed, all others will be vaccinated against the deadly virus.

Three patients, meanwhile, were being treated as suspected bird flu cases at the Sulianti Saroso Infectious Disease Hospital, said Dr Santoso Suroso, who was awaiting lab tests to confirm whether or not they had the illness.

There was no evidence that any of them was infected at the Ragunan Zoo, he said.

The H5N1 virus has swept through poultry populations in large swathes of Asia since 2003, resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of birds – and 63 people, including a 37-year-old Indonesian woman who died last week.

So far, most human cases have been traced to direct contact with infected birds, but health experts have warned that the virus could mutate and become easily communicable from human to human, triggering a deadly global pandemic.

Indonesia recorded its first human fatalities from bird flu in July when a father and his two daughters died after contracting the virus. Officials have linked those deaths to droppings from an infected bird.

Officials have carried out limited vaccinations of some of the estimated two billion birds in the country, but say they lack funds to carry out culls of flocks in areas where the virus is prevalent.

The virus has been recorded in 22 of Indonesia’s 32 provinces since 2003.