Indonesia SARS information being questioned by public

Indonesia SARS information being questioned by public

Sari P. Setiogi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

While most southeast Asian countries have been hard hit by
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Indonesia has the least
number of victims, as reported by the World Health Organization
(WHO), despite its lax measures for coping with the disease.

Health officers in Indonesia's major entry points, such as
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Jakarta, and Ngurah Rai
International Airport, Denpasar, have not yet started to carry
out individual health examinations on departing and arriving
passengers.

Lack of sophisticated equipment, such as thermal scanners, has
made the officials rely on their own common sense and simple
devices.

This situation has cast doubt among the public, particularly
expatriates, on whether the government is capable of containing
the flu-like disease, which has so far killed some 430 of over
6,000 people affected.

As of Monday, Indonesia's close neighbors Singapore recorded
25 deaths from 203 cases, Malaysia two deaths of six cases and
the Philippines two deaths of three cases, according to WHO.

Since the world body declared SARS a global threat in mid-
April, Indonesia has been relatively unaffected, with only two
probable cases. Of the two, one has left for Hong Kong and the
other has been discharged from the hospital due to his improving
health status.

An expatriate who lives in Jakarta, Angeline, said that she
was concerned at the disease, as no clear, accurate information
was available from the authorities.

A foreign diplomat also made the same comment. He was confused
by the changing data for SARS patients announced by the Ministry
of Health.

"The minister said there were two probable cases, while
another official said there were none," he observed.

Earlier last month, Hong Kong-based Political and Economic
Risk Consultancy (PERC), carried out a survey on 1,072 expatriate
business executives working in 12 Asian countries, on their
confidence in their host countries to deal with a major health
crisis such as SARS.

The survey, as quoted by AFP, revealed that respondents had
the least confidence in Indonesia, followed by India, China and
Vietnam. On a scale of zero to 10, with zero the best grade and
10 the worst, Indonesia scored 9.14.

Tjandra Yoga Aditama, a pulmonologist from Persahabatan
Hospital, East Jakarta, said he had encountered many questions
raised by expatriates about SARS in the country, during his
recent visit to Balikpapan in West Kalimantan.

"It is strange that Indonesia, which is geographically very
close to Singapore and has a large flow of people traveling
inside and outside the country, has a very small number of SARS
patients," he said.

"But if we were to say that the government were covering
something up, at least there should have been discussion on the
reality with pulmonologists like us, but in this case that hasn't
happened," said Tjandra.

"Suspected patients have also come from distinctly separate
areas, unlike cases abroad, where most patients were related to
each other, either as colleagues, neighbors, family, spouses or
friends."

Secretary General of Communicable Disease Eradication and
Environmental Health (P2M) Syafi'i Ahmad brushed aside suspicion
that the government had withheld data on SARS, saying the
precautionary measures taken by the government, "have proven to
work effectively."

"We have prevented community transmission in the country by
enforcing screening at entry ports," he said on Saturday.

Chinese authorities once tried to cover up the number of SARS-
infected patients in their country, but later had to reveal the
truth, as they could no longer contain the outbreaks anymore.

This prompted the dismissal of health minister Zhang Wenkang
and Beijing mayor Meng Xuenong in April, to restore public faith
in the government's capacity to deal with SARS.

Will the same thing happen here?

Just like the disease itself, which has left the planet with
101 burning questions, the spread of SARS in the country will
remain an enigma to many.