Govt confirms bird flu after long cover-up

Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

After keeping the bird flu from the public since September, allegedly due to pressure from several well-connected poultry businessmen, the government finally confirmed on Sunday the avian influenza, or bird flu, outbreak in the country.

Director General for the Development of Animal Husbandry Sofjan Sudardjat at the Ministry of Agriculture said the disease was first spotted on Aug. 29 in Pekalongan, Central Java, before spreading to other areas.

"Between September and November, the outbreak was already widespread ... but there is no evidence so far that the disease has spread to humans," said Sofjan at a press conference, which was also attended by poultry businessmen.

He believed there was a possibility that the disease was intentionally introduced to Indonesia by certain foreign parties, but he refused to name the suspected country.

The government previously insisted that the country was free of the disease, and blamed the deaths of thousands of chickens across East Java and Bali in the past three months on Newcastle disease, a virus that is harmless to humans.

Confirmation of the disease came after press coverage on suspected bird flu cases.

Around 4.7 million hens have died since August -- 60 percent died of Newcastle disease and 40 percent of a combination of Newcastle disease and avian influenza -- and at least 400 farms have been afflicted by the outbreak.

Sofjan explained that, since there were no human casualties and the disease was still considered harmless, the ministry preferred to call it avian influenza rather than bird flu.

"Avian influenza is different from bird flu. That is what experts told me ... We will call the disease 'bird flu' if humans are affected," he said.

Marthen Malole, a veterinary researcher at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, told The Jakarta Post that the government had refused to make the disease public, as there was pressure from certain multinational companies that feared their operations and exports would be disrupted.

"The government was prevented from publicly announcing the disease immediately because of a businessmen's lobby," said Marthen, who has been conducting bird flu research since September.

However, Sofjan denied the allegation, saying that a recent meeting with businessmen at the official residence of Minister of Agriculture Bungaran Saragih was not a lobbying attempt, but a routine discussion on the latest developments of the disease, exchanging information and data to ensure accuracy.

Sofjan said the directorate had identified H5N1 in December, but could not yet confirm that the H5N1 strain was harmful until it received comprehensive laboratory results on Thursday.

The H5N1 strain is harmful to both humans and birds.

He also said the government had not announced the outbreak earlier, as results from local researchers was still debatable due to the lack of available research facilities.

Separately, Marthen said independent and government researchers had confirmed the existence of avian influenza type H5N1 in November and had urged the government to inform the public as soon as possible to prevent the disease from spreading.

According to the directorate, the provinces hit hardest by the disease are: Central Java, with 17 afflicted regencies; East Java (13 regencies); West Java (3); Yogyakarta (6); Lampung (3); Bali (5); Banten (1); South Kalimantan (1); East Kalimantan (1); and Central Kalimantan (1).

In the region, the outbreak has killed six people in Vietnam while in Thailand, two human cases have been confirmed.

Meanwhile, Muvni Suatmodjo of the West Java Animal Husbandry office said that during the past several months some one million chickens in the province had died, possibly because of the bird flu disease as shown by the physical signs in the dead chickens: red stripes in the legs, and comb turned blue.