Fighting bird flu

It is heartening to know that the government seems to be on the right track combating bird flu. The representative of the World Health Organization, Georg Petersen, told this newspaper on Tuesday that the government was following WHO recommendations and procedures in investigating the case.

Once suspicions arose that the deaths of a man and his two children could be from bird flu, investigations began trying to trace how the three might have contracted the disease. Samples of their blood, house dust and even from mice found around their house were immediately sent to a laboratory in Hong Kong for tests. Media people pressed for information every day, accustomed to the knowledge that the last few governments have been much more open in divulging information on public health than those in the New Order. Indeed, in a short time the government and WHO announced that the man and his children had died of bird flu.

However Petersen said that all countries needed to improve efforts to fight a possible outbreak. To the average person, regardless of whether they eat chicken, the looming threat of any disease is worrying.

Praise from WHO will not ease the anxiety of the millions of entrepreneurs in the poultry business who are looking at the prospects of huge losses as people again stop eating chicken. Any compensation for their farms affected by the culling of livestock also seems to be in the distant future, pending the decision of the House of Representatives on the government's request for additional funds.

The Ministry of Health has also said it has found the virus in bird feces near their home, without being able to reveal many more details -- especially the most important -- where did the birds come from, how did the deceased come into contact with the virus and why did they but no one else become infected in their area; those who did not fall victim to the disease included the man's wife and his surviving child. Then the health officials tell us that it will be difficult to stop the virus, given that the carriers include wild birds and pigeons.

As the H5N1 virus causing avian flu is among those that still mystify even the world's top experts, it is understandable that authorities cannot answer all of our questions at once.

We only urge the government to ensure that the authorities do all they can, responding to requests of assistance and information and not denying that their area is a "red zone" for bird flu. Such denials are still heard, including from authorities in Tangerang where the deceased lived; the same time as reporters pointed out how local poultry workers were not wearing masks, one of the necessary safety measures to prevent the spread of the flu.

The painful lessons of denial are all around us; China in 2003 was slow to report incidents of the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and was blamed for its belated action to contain the epidemic that hurt business and travel in Asia. Although the actions of its health workers were later praised for successfully preventing an otherwise wider spread of SARS, China was again in the spotlight the following year for what was suspected to be under-reporting and late reporting of bird flu.

Even if authorities are able to shed their habit of denial, WHO warns that in several countries affected by bird flu, "surveillance and reporting systems for both human and animal diseases are weak." This sounds familiar, with the reports of polio and malnutrition not far behind us.

The public information campaign also needs a boost, as farmers in Tangerang were still found to be unaware of bird flu and bewildered as to why their businesses were hurting even when their area was in the headlines. Information pamphlets need to be distributed more widely, telling farmers and the general public how to protect people, their families and their businesses.

One thing this country doesn't need a repeat of is more pictures of posing, grinning officials feasting on chicken, to show that everything is "OK". With so many questions unanswered, we ask that they don't go to the trouble of insulting our intelligence.