Officers lack info on bird flu
Dewi Santoso, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
As the Jakarta Health Agency relied on its officers at community health centers and hospitals as its vanguards in spreading information of avian influenza, or bird flu, and its impacts for the public, the officers themselves have not received thorough and complete information on the contagious disease.
Furthermore, the health agency's effort in distributing 10,000 leaflets to the health centers was questionable as based on The Jakarta Post monitoring on Monday because many community health centers claimed that they only received a limited number of them.
Head of the community health center in Pluit subdistrict, North Jakarta, Selvi, said that she had only received one single leaflet on the bird flu from the North Jakarta Health Agency at a meeting last week.
"We had a meeting on the bird flu last Friday in the North Jakarta Health Agency office and we received only one leaflet," said Selvi, displaying the leaflet.
She refused giving further information, suggesting that "you'd better ask the community health center in Pluit district for further information."
The leaflet carries general information on what is bird flu, how the contagious disease spreads and how to avoid getting infected.
An officer at the North Jakarta Health Agency, Irma Santi, confirmed at last week's meeting to discuss the outbreak.
"The purpose (of the meeting) is to give the (community health center) officers more information on the bird flu. We have distributed photocopies of the leaflets as we only received 15 leaflets from the city health agency," said Irma.
She expected every community center in the districts and subdistricts to make more copies of the leaflets and distribute them to the public.
At the Palmerah district-level community health center in West Jakarta, no posters or leaflets on the bird flu were seen. Neither the head of the center nor the doctor was available for comment.
"The head of the center is not coming but as far as I know we haven't received any leaflets or posters (on the bird flu)," said Wiwiek, a pharmacist at the center.
She suggested the Post to contact the West Jakarta Health Agency, suggesting that "if you want more information, you'd better go there."
Both the West and East Jakarta health agencies were facing the same problem of lacking of leaflets.
West Jakarta Health Agency official Ariani Murti said that even with only three leaflets, the municipal agency has reached out to officers from every community health center in the districts and subdistricts to give complete and accurate information on the bird flu.
"We'll hold a meeting to know if we'll have enough budget to print more leaflets. But for sure, the West Jakarta Animal Husbandry Agency will gather 80 health center officers on Tuesday to explain them on the mapping of slaughter houses and farms and the symptoms of the disease," she said.
East Jakarta Health Agency coordinator Cahyono Budi Setiawan described a similar situation, saying that "we have only around 100 leaflets in the form of photocopies."
Lack of public campaign by the city administration has left Jakartans and health officers ill-informed on the danger of the disease, which has brought the death toll to 18 in Thailand and Vietnam.
Although the World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed that the H5N1 virus, the only strain of bird flu known to be fatal to humans, is transmitted to humans from direct contact with live, infected chickens, the city health agency admitted that it had no other outreach plans.