RI will not seek financial aid to fight bird flu

RI will not seek financial aid to fight bird flu

Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The government has been reluctant to ask for financial aid from
overseas to fight the deadly bird flu virus, although the United
States, Australia and the European Union have pledged financial
aid to help Indonesia contain the virus.

With local administrations only allocated between Rp 300
million (US$29,732) and Rp 800 million to fight bird flu this
year, and about Rp 2 billion next year, it will be impossible for
the administrations to prevent the spread of the virus.

However, Vice President Jusuf Kalla downplayed the threat
facing the country from bird flu, saying the government would not
seek financial assistance to deal with the problem.

"Instead of financial aid, we are asking for cooperation from
the international community because the bird flu virus does not
originate here," he said.

The U.S. has pledged $3.15 million to help Indonesia
strengthen its early warning system and early diagnosis
capabilities, improve surveillance and bolster rapid-response
teams to contain avian influenza. Australia has also pledged A$10
million (about US$7.5 million) to help Indonesia fight bird flu.

The European Union will provide $35.7 million to help all
Asian countries fight the disease that had killed over 60 people
in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia since late 2003.

Kalla expressed optimism that Minister of Health Siti Fadilah
Supari, Minister of Agriculture Anton Apriyantono and State
Minister for National Development Planning Sri Mulyani Indrawati
-- who are currently attending a conference on bird flu in Geneva
-- would be able to draw up a cooperation scheme to help the
country battle the virus.

The world has seen six flu pandemics in the past three
centuries, with three in the last century alone: the 1918 Spanish
flu that killed between 20 million and 50 million people, the
Asian flu in the 1950s that killed five million people and the
Hong Kong flu in 1968 that killed one million people.

Currently, Indonesia, Southeast Asia's largest economy, has
only allocated Rp 134 billion, plus an additional Rp 107 billion,
this year to deal with bird flu.

Minister of Agriculture Anton said earlier the only way to
effectively combat the spread of bird flu was with mass culls
within a radius of three kilometers of the point of an outbreak.

But his ministry says it does not have the funds to compensate
poultry farmers whose birds are culled, or to perform the mass
culls themselves.

The 2005 state budget has an allocation of some Rp 10 trillion
for routine expenditures, and it is very unlikely all of this
money will be spent.

About half of the money is expected to be carried over into
next year's state budget, while the remaining will be allocated
as an emergency fund for government agencies.

"I think it is far more important for the government to get
serious about combating the virus. If there is a strong will,
financial problems can be easily solved," said Chairul Anwar
Nidom, a virologist at Airlangga University's tropical disease
center.

Chairul said if there were financial constraints, the
government should immediately seek overseas aid so it could
perform mass culls and entirely root out the source of the
outbreak.

"Infected birds that are not eliminated can become reservoirs
for a human pandemic. Unless all of the infected birds are
culled, I am afraid a pandemic could start in Indonesia that
would severely affect other countries," he said.