Officers lack info on bird flu
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.