More than two months since the swine flu outbreak began in Mexico, Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari confirmed on Wednesday that Indonesia had its first cases.  Siti told a news conference that six Indonesians had contracted the H1N1 influenza virus, but five of them were overseas ” including a health official sent to China on a fact-finding mission on the outbreak of the disease. The sixth case is a pilot now hospitalized in Jakarta. In Bali, a British tourist has also been confirmed as infected. 

Of the five Indonesians who tested positive abroad, three are in Singapore and one in Australia. The health official remains in Beijing, where she is being treated. Another Indonesian in Macau and another tourist in Bali are also both in the hospital with suspected swine flu. The World Health Organization says that as of Wednesday, 102 countries have officially reported 55,620 cases of swine flu, including 238 deaths, 90 percent of which are in Mexico.

Siti said she had requested that authorities in Singapore and China treat the Indonesian citizens and not send them home until they were well and noncontagious.

She added that Indonesia was caring for two tourists from Australia now hospitalized in Bali ” the British tourist and an Australian boy suspected of having the virus. The two cases were exported from abroad and so far there are no human-to-human infection cases here, she said.

Siti said that in Australia, swine flu had been imported from abroad prior to human-to-human infections. Hopefully that will not happen here.

But she expressed concern that tourists coming to Bali might be transporting the virus. Frankly, I am very worried about people coming in from Australia, she said, adding that she would ask airport health authorities in Bali to increase monitoring efforts.

The pilot, the first Indonesian confirmed with the H1N1 virus, was identified as WA, 37, who flew to Australia on June 14 and Hong Kong on June 18. He admitted himself to Sulianti Saroso Hospital in North Jakarta on June 19. He went directly there because he felt that he might have been infected. He is now still in isolation but he is in a good condition, Siti said.

The British tourist, Bobie Masoner, 22, who arrived in Bali from Melbourne on June 19, is the second person here confirmed to have contracted swine flu.

She broke out in a fever the next day and admitted herself to a clinic in Nusa Dua complaining of a fever and cold. She showed her health alert card issued by the airport authorities for passengers arriving from Australia and was referred directly to Sanglah Hospital in Denpasar.

The incubation period for the virus is three to four days.

Sanglah Hospital is now also taking care of a 12-year-old Australian child, identified as GC, who is also suspected of being infected with the virus.

He was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday afternoon after showing symptoms of high fever and a cold. He arrived in Bali after flying in from Melbourne on a Garuda Airlines flight on June 19.

Meanwhile, the head of the Bali airport health authority, Dr. Nyoman Murtiyasa, denied that his office was negligent in monitoring swine flu cases.

What we need to do now is to reinitiate the health alert card to monitor every passenger, he said.

source : http://thejakartaglobe.com/home/indonesia-finally-feels-the-touch-of-swine-flu/314301