NTT PREPARES THREE HOSPITALS FOR "MEXICAN FLU" PATIENTS

Kupang, May 4 (ANTARA) - The East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) health office has prepared three hospitals to anticipate pandemic of the "Mexican Flu" or popularly known as swine flu.

In a joint press conference with NTT Vice Governor Esthon L Foenay here on Monday, NTT health office chief Dr Stefanus Bria Seran said the three hospitals were Prof WZ Yohannes Hospital in Kupang, TC Hillers Maumere Hospital in Sikka district in Flores island, and Umbu Rara Meha Hospital in Waingapu in Sumba Timur district.

"It is one of the concrete measures taken by the Health Ministry to anticipate the possible outbreak of the so-called Mexican Flu in East Nusa Tenggara province," Foenay said.

He added that the ministry had prepared 100 reference hospitals across the country to anticipate the possible outbreak of the swine flu in Indonesia.

Foenay said each reference hospital was equipped with isolation room for the patients, ventilators, medicines, and other facilities to protect the health workers.

He asserted that the World Health Organization (WHO) never found virus from swine in Mexico as the source of deadly swine flu virus N1N1.

"Swine flu is only a name for such a case, but it can precisely be called Mexican Flu like what we knew as Spanish Flu in 1918-1919 that claimed thousands of lives then," the chairperson of the NTT chapter of the Indonesian Veterinarian Association, Maria Geong, said at the press conference.

She said the Mexican Flu, known as swine flu, had created panic among swine breeders and pork consumers around the world.

"I would like to assert that the deadly virus H1N1 does not come from swines nor from pork consumption but from the influenza virus A sub type H1N1 which has infected people in Mexico and North America," she said.

She added that according to WHO, there was no indication that people with the H1N1 virus had had direct contact with pigs.