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Indonesia plans to upgrade its national health laboratory to
meet World Health Organization standards, a leading scientist said on
Friday, to be able to conduct definitive bird flu tests at home.
The country currently sends samples to WHO-referenced labs overseas for
H5N1 tests as those conducted by the Jakarta-based National Institute
of Health Research and Development Laboratory (Badan Litbangkes) are
not considered final.
"We will upgrade Litbangkes to biosecurity level three, so we don't
have to send samples to Hong Kong for confirmation," said Erna
Tresnaningsih, head of the research and development center for
biomedics and pharmacy at Litbangkes.
The H5N1 bird flu virus has become endemic in Indonesia since it was
first discovered in the country's poultry in late 2003. The virus has
infected 51 people and killed 39 of them.
In an interview with Reuters, Tresnaningsih said eight laboratories in
the country would be upgraded this year to conduct initial H5N1 tests,
and samples would be sent to Litbangkes for confirmation.
"The idea is when there is a case in the region, (one of) the eight
labs will test and then they will send the samples to the medical
laboratory in Litbangkes in Jakarta for confirmation," she said.
Of the eight laboratories, two are on Sumatra island, four on Java, one
on Bali and one on Sulawesi.
To cope with an outbreak, Indonesia has put much effort into training
government staff on infection control and bringing their laboratories
up to speed with help from the medical experts in Singapore and Hong
Kong, according to sources in both these places.
Microbiologist Leo Poon, who works closely with the WHO-referenced
laboratory in Hong Kong, said results of H5N1 tests run by Indonesian
laboratories in the past two years have closely mirrored results from
the Hong Kong laboratory.
"They are pretty good. So far, their interpretation is pretty similar
to what we get. I'm quite confident that they are doing a right job for
diagnostic purposes," Poon told Reuters.
However, there have been a few cases where samples were never taken
from Indonesian victims believed to have been infected by H5N1.
"If they were already dead by the time they were taken to hospital,
it's difficult to get samples. But if they had been treated in
hospitals for some time, we would be able to take their samples,"
Hariadi Wibisono, director of animal-borne disease control at the
Health Ministry, told Reuters.
Tresnaningsih said staff at the eight laboratories would be sent to
Singapore where they would be taught how to take samples correctly.
"We want the laboratories to be able to diagnose and read PCR
(polymerase chain reaction) tests and serology tests correctly. We will
train our staff to take specimens correctly because if not, the samples
will come back negative," she said.
She did not know how much the upgrading project would cost, but said
the WHO would help raise funds from Australia and Germany and obtain
testing tools so that all eight laboratories would have the same
facilities as Litbangkes.
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