Govt lacks money for bird flu campaign

Govt lacks money for bird flu campaign

Eva C. Komandjaja and Indra Harsaputra, The Jakarta Post,
Jakarta/Surabaya

The government admitted on Wednesday it could not organize a
public campaign to contain the spread of bird flu due to a lack
of funds.

Director General of Communicable Diseases at the Ministry of
Health Umar Fahmi told The Jakarta Post most of the budget
allocated to control the outbreak had been spent on educating
poultry farmers and workers.

"We do not have any fund to print posters or leaflets as we
did during the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak.
Perhaps because so far, there have been no cases of bird flu in
humans, the government does not consider this campaign
important," he said.

However, he said the ministry had already distributed leaflets
to Indonesians arriving from their haj pilgrimage, asking them to
keep away from poultry for at least one month.

"Most of them are prone to influenza and it would be easy for
them to be infected with bird flu," Umar said.

He said the ministry was seeking funds from other sources,
including a loan from the Coordinating Ministry of People's
Welfare.

"Currently, we can only campaign through the media. As for
people living in isolated areas, it will be difficult and
expensive to reach them," said Umar.

Meanwhile, World Health Organization (WHO) representative in
Indonesia, George Peterson, told the Post the organization did
not have any plans to start a campaign to educate public on bird
flu.

He said WHO would provide with guidelines for the Indonesian
government if it would organize a public campaign against bird
flu.

Separately, chairman of the Indonesian Poultry Farmers
Association (PPUI), Paul Iskandar said the organization would
step up education campaign on bird flu for the public, especially
poultry farmers in remote areas in East Java.