Bird flu? What bird flu?

While the rest of the world is bracing itself for the possibility of a bird flu pandemic, life goes on as if nothing is happening for most people in Indonesia. Going by the headlines of local newspapers and TV news programs these past two weeks, you wouldn't think that Indonesia is at the center of international attention because of the growing global concern about the spread of the deadly H5N1 virus.

Foreign experts and senior officials concerned about bringing the virus under control have been coming to Indonesia, where three people have been confirmed to have died from bird flu during the past three months and two more are confirmed sufferers. A handful more people have tested influenza positive in preliminary tests here and are currently undergoing medical treatment, with some reports suggesting there are as many as 85 other suspected bird flu cases in the country.

The latest visitor was U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael O. Leavitt, who on Monday pledged to give Indonesia $3.15 million to help the government here fight the menace.

Typically, Leavitt's visit, like others before him these past few weeks, generated little media publicity, and thus public interest. It's like we're saying to our American guest, "we'll take your money, thank you, and goodbye." Afterwards, we all go back to our normal routine. But for how long -- that will be the crucial question.

Welcome to Indonesia, the land of multiple crises these past eight years, so much so that by now we have become adept at weathering a crisis by simply wishing it away. Since the devastating 1998 financial meltdown, our national leaders have become skilled at developing this "no sense of crisis" attitude. We have seen this time and again as calamities strike this nation one after another. We saw this attitude when the economy was going downhill economically in 1998, we saw it again when homegrown terrorists turned Indonesia into a place to be avoided by foreigners at almost all costs. We are seeing it again now, as one by one, people succumb to the bird flu virus.

A lot of the time, we as a nation seem to be at a loss as to how to deal with these crises. Ditto, it seems, with the bird flu. A lot of the initiatives come from outsiders, including the World Health Organization and foreign donor governments, hoping that Indonesia could contain the problem and thus prevent the virus from spreading outside its borders.

After the initial shocking announcement by Minister of Health Siti Fadilah Supari on Sept. 19 declaring "the extraordinary situation" nationwide to contain the bird flu virus, very little has been heard about what actions are being taken by the government to cure patients, and most of all, to prevent more people from acquiring the virus.

One would have thought that an "extraordinary situation" calls for extraordinary or drastic measures. We have seen none of these so far. Instead, we are being told that our government is trying to deal with the problem on the cheap. Since a mass culling of birds is considered way too expensive, Indonesia has opted for the next best thing: Giving vaccines to the birds. How effective this will be remains unknown.

Contrast this with the quick reaction by Romania when it learned of its first bird flu cases affecting chickens last week. Thousands of birds were immediately culled. Now that Turkey has also reported its first cases of bird flu, Indonesia can no longer depend on the charity of European governments who are more concerned about protecting their own people and those closer to their border. With the bird flu Tamilu vaccine in short supply, Europe, the United States and other wealthy countries will all be rushing to make sure that they have enough stocks to cope with the possible pandemic. Indonesia, like other Southeast Asian countries where outbreaks of the flu happened first, will likely be left out in the cold.

International health experts are warning of the possibility of the H5N1 virus mutating making it possible for human-to-human transmission. When that happens, then the grim predictions of millions of deaths could become a horrifying reality. And Indonesia, given its present lax attitude, would likely to be at the center of this toll.

All the signs suggest that the bird flu threat in Indonesia has not been contained since Minister Fadila declared an extraordinary situation nationwide. What the national campaign to fight the bird flu needs is greater and stronger leadership from the top. No offense to the minister, who seems to be fighting this alone in her Cabinet, but a presidential seal would go a long way in changing the nation's attitude toward this potentially deadly pandemic.