Top government officials have been accused of misleading the public amid the growing fear of a swine flu pandemic reaching Indonesia, including by linking the disease to the consumption of pork.
Sri Mukartini, head of the animal food product division at the farming directorate general of the Ministry of Agriculture, said Thursday people who did not eat pork were not necessarily safe from the H1N1 virus, and those who ate pork were no more susceptible than those who did not.
“The disease is not food borne,” she said. “The H1N1 virus does not stay in the muscle tissue of the animal but in the respiratory tracts.”
Thus, pork does not carry the H1N1 virus in the swine flu disease, except if the respiratory tracts of the pig are still intact with the meat, or perhaps if the pig passed on respiratory particles.
Salmonella, E. coli bacteria and toxoplasma are examples of food borne diseases.
The OIE, the Paris-based world organization for animal health, released a statement Thursday saying that the scientific information currently available indicated that the novel A/H1N1 influenza virus could be transmitted amongst humans.
There was no evidence of infection in pigs, nor of humans acquiring infection directly from pigs, the release said.
I can't recall such a statement being made about Jakarta's policies on avian flu. Maybe the government's own people are getting fed up with purely political health policies.
