Australia sends bird flu experts to Indonesia

Australia sends bird flu experts to Indonesia

Australia will send a team of experts to help neighboring Indonesia as it struggles to combat a deadly outbreak of bird flu, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on Tuesday.

Health officials in the world's fourth-most-populous country believe the H5N1 bird flu strain has killed five Indonesians and scores more are under observation, while the disease has killed more than 60 people in four Asian nations since late 2003.

"I think they (Indonesia) are struggling," said Downer, who last week said Jakarta had been "caught short" by the disease.

Australia has paid for 50,000 doses of an anti-viral drug to help fight the bird flu outbreak and on Tuesday unveiled plans to deploy senior policy advisers and technical specialists, led by the director-general of government aid agency AusAid, to Jakarta.

"These experts will work to make an assessment of the Avian influenza threat, convey Australia's concern and agree on specific areas of further Australian assistance," Downer said.

"This assistance is likely to include further strengthening of laboratory capacity, public awareness campaigns and contingency planning."

Experts fear the H5N1 virus, which has the power to kill one out of every two people it infects, could set off a pandemic if it mutates to become transmissible between people.

Indonesia, which has been criticized for a reluctance to carry out mass cullings of chickens in infected areas -- as some other countries have done -- has formed a special team to prepare for a pandemic and coordinate foreign assistance and funding.

The virus has spread to fowl in 22 out of 33 provinces in Indonesia's sprawling archipelago, killing more than 10 million domesticated birds since 2003.

The World Health Organization has warned that flu virus activity in Indonesia may increase during the country's November to April wet season. --Reuters