June 19, 2006

 

Bird flu expert says Indonesian bird flu running out of control

 

 

Indonesia is failing to control an ongoing H5N1 avian influenza outbreak, as a result of a lack of political will and poor coordination between the ministries of health and agriculture, a key government bird flu expert said Monday (Jun 19).

 

A policy and funding disconnect is seriously undermining official efforts to reduce bird flu transmission from poultry to humans, vice chairman of the official Indonesian National Committee for Avian Influenza Control and Pandemic Influenza Preparedness, Tri Satya Putri Naipospos, said at a Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club briefing.

 

"I don't see any (policy) focus," Naipospos said. "(The government's) not serious about what's going on with bird flu."

 

Naipospos is no stranger to outspoken opinions about perceived failings in government measures to tackle bird flu. She was dismissed in September 2005 as the Ministry of Agriculture's Director of Animal Health for what analysts said was her open criticism of shortcomings in the ministry's anti-H5N1 strategy.

 

But her latest comments about inadequacies in Indonesia's response to its bird flu outbreak would likely fuel perceptions that the country rivals Vietnam and Cambodia as a weak link in global efforts to prevent a potentially deadly H5N1 pandemic which could kill millions.

 

Indonesia has recorded 37 human H5N1 fatalities out of 49 confirmed cases since July, the world's second highest death toll behind Vietnam, World Health Organisation data indicates.

 

In December 2005, the Indonesian government unveiled its 2006-2008 National Avian Influenza Strategic Management Plan, a two-pronged strategy that includes the control of bird flu outbreaks in humans and animals and preparation for the possible emergence of a human pandemic bird flu strain.

 

But Indonesia's cash-strapped government lacks the resources to effectively tackle its bird flu outbreak and prevent future human infections, analysts say.

 

"Indonesia's 2006 budget allocates just US$14 million to combat the disease, although the government's own estimate is that at least 30 times that amount would be prudent," said the Asian Development Bank's latest Development Outlook released in April.

 

Naipospos says the government's anti-H5N1 strategy is flawed by allocating only one-third of those funds to stopping the virus in poultry populations.

 

The Indonesian government needs to prioritise "preemptive culling" of suspected infected bird populations, which requires money to pay compensation for slaughtered poultry and a legislative framework to allocate those funds, Naipospos said.

 

"We have to stop this transmission chain from poultry-to-human and there's no other alternative way to do it unless you kill the chickens," Naipospos said.

 

Naipospos said the government is instead pursuing a poultry vaccination programme that is under-funded and impractical in a country in which any of its millions of backyard chickens may harbour the H5N1 virus.

 

"In 2005 there was no vaccine at all (and) in 2006 up to June, the government has tried to allocate 60 million doses of vaccine, but we have almost 300 million backyard chickens," she said.

 

Naipospos said Indonesia's lack of an effective public information campaign about potential H5N1 contagion through poultry and contradictory messages from the ministries of health and agriculture are also undermining effective H5N1 control efforts.

 

"The minister of health says you have to cull chickens, but the minister of agriculture sometimes has a different opinion, so there's no clear guidance or a common line that we have to follow," she said.