Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Sufari said Tuesday that the ministry has prepared 100 hospitals designed for treatment of possible swine flu patient nationwide.

Despite that the virus could not live in tropical areas, Indonesia must anticipate the possible entry of the H1N1 virus by adapting in the areas, the minister said at her office here.

She said that the hospitals would be equipped with sophisticated laboratory across the country, which has been hit hard by bird flu and successful in declining the spread of the H5N1 virus.

Indonesia has adopted a series of measures to prevent the disease from spreading by putting scanner at the international airport arrival and temporarily halted pork import as well as a plan to vaccinate pigs.

Raising pigs with back-yard farm is common in the archipelago country.

Swine flu is resulted by influenza subtype A variant H1N1, commonly conducted by animals, mostly pigs, with a possibility for transmission among humans.

(Xinhua News Agency April 28, 2009)