TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Avian flu is one of the diseases to watch out for in 2017, the Health Ministry says.
M. Subuh, the ministry's Director General of Disease Control and Prevention, said there were no cases of avian flu in 2016 in Indonesia, but "it began to spread in China and we need to be on alert," he said last week.
To prevent an outbreak, his directorate general will seek to carry out early prevention measures.
The Health Ministry has also prepared several types of medicine such as Tamiflu and antibiotics to treat the disease.
In addition to the bird flu, other diseases that must be watched out for are the dengue fever and the HIV virus.
According to Subuh, both diseases are still lurking every year. To maximize monitoring and surveillance over the potentials for these illnesses, he said the ministry will utilize facilities provided by the emergency operations center (EOC).
The EOC is a 24-7monitoring center equipped with a variety of technologies to detect the presence of disease in the community.
