The bird flu scare

The bird flu scare

After months of keeping silent, the government finally
admitted during the weekend that the millions of chickens that
had died in Java, Bali and several other parts of the country in
the past few months had perished of bird flu -- the feared avian
influenza that could also be fatal to humans, as several cases in
China, Vietnam, Korea and elsewhere have shown. On the island of
Java alone, about 10 million birds are estimated to have died of
the disease since October last year.

But why the months of official silence?

Sofjan Sudardjat, Director General for the Development of
Animal Husbandry at the Ministry of Agriculture, has this
possible explanation: Between September and November of last
year, the outbreak was already widespread. However, there was no
evidence that the disease had spread to humans. In the months
since September, some 4.7 million hens have died, at least 400
farms have been affected, and several people in Vietnam and
elsewhere have died. But Vietnam, China and Korea seem a safe
distance away. Furthermore, at least in the eyes of scientists
and officials, Indonesians can take comfort in the knowledge that
they are more or less immune to the disease, being racially
closer to the African races than the Mongoloid, who seem to be
more susceptible to the avian flu virus.

Be that as it may, the authorities began taking the public
health hazard posed by this latest epidemic seriously, only after
the East Java chapter of the Indonesian Association of
Veterinarians (PDHI) confirmed that the deaths of millions of
layer hens in East Java and several other areas of the country
were caused by the bird flu virus. That statement effectively
shot down the government's attestations that the birds died of
Newcastle disease, which is usually fatal to chickens, but
harmless to humans.

In the final analysis, of course, the government's silence on
the matter appears incomprehensible and irresponsible, to put it
mildly. It also tends to give rise to speculations and conspiracy
theories that may be farfetched, even sinister, yet cannot be
easily refuted. Marthen Malole, a veterinarian researcher at the
Bogor Institute of Agriculture, for example, said that the
government had refused to make the disease public because of
pressure from certain multinational companies that feared their
operations and exports would be disrupted. In Malole's words,
"the government was prevented from publicly announcing the
disease immediately because of a businessmen's lobby."

The big question that is now on the lips of many lay people
and scientists alike is, is the current bird flu outbreak simply
a disaster in the business sense, or is it the first sign of
something worse to come? Given the known ability of viruses to
mutate, the world may be facing yet another serious pandemic on a
scale not seen before. For certain, however, the economic
implications of a possible serious bird flu outbreak should not
be overlooked. Indonesian researchers have confirmed that they
have identified the H5N1 virus, which is harmful to both humans
and birds and, according to the WHO, is known to be capable of
mutating rapidly.

In conclusion, there is no time to loose in fighting the
current bird flu outbreak in this country with all the means at
our disposal. Unfortunately, that may mean the destruction of the
stock on hand. But the question is not one of which must be
protected first: businesses or consumers. In the long run, it is
by imparting a sense of safety among consumers that the farming
business can be ensured a prolonged existence.