Indonesia seeks prompt joint actions to eradicate SARS
Indonesia seeks prompt joint actions to eradicate SARS
Fabiola Desy Unidjaja and Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post,
Bangkok/Jakarta
President Megawati Soekarnoputri urged on Tuesday for quick,
concerted measures to deal with the spread of Severe Acute
Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), warning that the pandemic could
endanger regional stability.
Addressing the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN)
emergency summit on the disease in Bangkok, Megawati underlined
the need to establish a task force to cope with the disease.
"SARS, which is no respecter of national boundaries, and is so
virulent and contagious, should be dealt with quickly and with
all the vigor and judiciousness that we can muster," she said at
the summit.
The President further suggested that an ASEAN ad hoc task
force be established to deal with the problem, which would then
be dissolved when SARS was brought under control.
"Its mission (would be) to submit recommendations for
technical measures that would prevent and manage the spread of
the disease," she suggested.
ASEAN plus Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao attended the one-day
emergency summit as the disease posed a threat to the region's
economy.
The disease has battered the tourism industry and affected
regional economic growth, which has not fully recovered from the
1997 economic crisis.
Indonesian finance minister Boediono had earlier said that the
outbreak of the disease would make it impossible for the country
to reach an economic growth target of four percent.
At the summit, Megawati said that the worsening economic trend
would finally endanger regional stability as massive unemployment
would likely follow the economic slump.
"Statistics show an average 13 percent decline in the number
of foreign tourists to Indonesia in the first quarter of 2003
compared to the same period in 2002," she said.
Indonesia has reported a cumulative number of three probable
SARS cases, one of whom, a Taiwanese citizen, died on Sunday.
Megawati underlined that there should be a standardized
quarantine system in the region and equal treatment for all
patients, regardless of their citizenship.
In Jakarta, the World Health Organization (WHO) expressed
confidence that Indonesia would be able to contain the spread of
SARS despite its first fatality.
"I am confident about the current measures taken by the
government of Indonesia as the measures have followed WHO's
guidelines," Steven Bjorg, a senior official at WHO's
representative office in Jakarta, told the Jakarta Post on
Tuesday.
The government has issued a number of guidelines to contain
SARS at airports and seaports, at hospitals and in the community.
Earlier this month, WHO had also praised the government's
measures against SARS, despite mounting criticism that the
government was slow in taking necessary steps to contain SARS.
Bjorg said as long as there was no outbreak of SARS in
Indonesia, the most effective measure against SARS was still at
airports and seaports as the disease was imported from SARS-
affected countries.
"Airports and seaports here must still remain on high alert
regarding people coming from SARS-affected areas," Bjorg said.
Bjorg said it was not necessary to focus SARS measures to
cover the ethnic-Chinese neighborhoods, although all probable
SARS cases here were of Chinese ethnicity.
"It will be an overreaction as the country has no local chains
of transmission," he said.