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Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/...icle/7422.html
January 26, 2009 SHARE THIS PAGE
Hera Diani
Public Complacency Sets In Even Though Bird Flu Threat Lingers
It had the feel of a victory celebration. A popular Indonesian rock song blasted from the ballroom of Kresna Hotel in the Central Java provincial district of Wonosobo during a bird flu ?festival? late last month. Local government officials who had gathered on stage to sing modified the lyrics into messages about the national eradication campaign against the H5N1 avian influenza virus.
Lost amid the party, which included arts performances and a bird flu poster competition for participants from 35 districts and towns in Central Java and Yogyakarta provinces, was the fact that there wasn?t really much to celebrate. While human fatalities from bird flu have become a rarity in Indonesia, the virus remains endemic among the poultry populations of the majority of Indonesia?s 33 provinces.
Local researchers have warned that the Indonesian version of the virus has changed, meaning it could be harder to contain, while some health officials and activists said they feared that the eradication campaign is showing signs of complacency.All the while, the specter of a global human bird flu pandemic capable of killing millions remains, with some international scientists saying one is inevitable.
In Wonosobo, a primarily farming district 240 kilometers east of Jakarta, bird flu is still found among poultry. The number of dead birds fell from 1,052 in 13 subdistricts in 2007 to 563 in eight subdistricts in 2008, but officials are quick to admit the threat is still out there.
Karyoto, who heads Wonosobo?s Animal Husbandry Office, said the local government had carried out programs to eradicate bird flu, from community training to poultry examination, rapid test, disinfectant spray and culling. But he said there seemed to no longer be a sense of urgency among local residents to continue the fight against the virus.
?The awareness is there, in a sense that people know about bird flu. But people still seem to take it for granted, and they don?t realize how dangerous it is. Maybe because there are no human cases in Wonosobo.?
Even in Sucen village in nearby Magelang district, where a 7-year-old girl died of bird flu in 2007, the sense of crisis has passed. Village chief Eny Muryani said local people often saw death as fate, although for several months after the girl died they obeyed a ban on backyard chicken coups and orders to cull sick fowl.
?People still think bird flu is a common poultry disease,? Eny said, adding that even livestock breeders and crop farmers don?t understand its severity. The village, she said, was often used as a shortcut by cargo trucks loaded with chickens trying to avoid government-run road inspection posts.
Triono, the father of Qummi Layla, the girl who died of bird flu, remains baffled by his daughter?s death.
?We?ve never had poultry, all of our neighbors? poultry were caged and my daughter didn?t like to eat chicken,? he said. ?She also never swam in the river, where the farmers used to throw their dead chickens.?
Triono, who now has a 1-year-old daughter, said he was still visited by bird flu researchers, health officials and journalists asking questions about Qummi?s death.
Even though bird flu stories are increasingly rare in local newspapers, Indonesia remains the world?s most-affected country, with 113 human deaths from 139 cases as of Jan. 19, according to the World Health Organization. The national government?s initial blase attitude toward fighting the virus even after 13 people died in 2005 not only alarmed foreign donors and international health officials, but prompted cynics to warn that any global pandemic would originate from Indonesia.
According to the WHO, the vast majority of human deaths here were caused by direct contact with infected poultry, such as children playing with them or adults butchering them or plucking their feathers. While there has indeed been progress in terms of the number of human cases ? the number of deaths fell from 45 in 2006 to 19 last year ? experts warn that a pandemic remains a serious threat.
Chairul Anwar Nidom, a leading bird flu researcher from Airlangga University in Surabaya, said that based on his research in 2008, the mutation model of the avian influenza virus has changed and was no longer considered common.
?Poultry no longer die when infected by the virus, but become virus carriers. The virus has changed rapidly,? he told the Jakarta Globe.
His findings were confirmed by poultry disease expert Charles Rangga Tabbu from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, who said the virus today had different clinical symptoms than the first one discovered in Tangerang, Banten Province, in 2003.
?The virus no longer shows specific clinical symptoms, making it more difficult to recognize,? Charles told Kompas newspaper in a recent interview.
The change in symptoms, he said, was due to a virus mutation, as well as from vaccinated poultry coming into contact with the virus. Such poultry have weak antibodies as a result of being vaccinated, causing the virus to remain in their bodies and ultimately in their feces, Nidom said, who criticized vaccinations as part of the bird flu eradication program.
?When human gets sick, the poultry shouldn?t be vaccinated. Let the poultry get infected by the virus and die,? he said.
?Vaccinations press the virus and keep poultry from getting sick, but as a result, the virus is carried everywhere.?
Nidom said surveillance and reforming operations at poultry farms to improve sanitation was more effective than vaccines, but ?unfortunately, the authorized government institution, in this case the Ministry of Agriculture, has been slow in doing so.?
The ministry has been widely criticized for its perceived slow response to the bird flu threat and failing to take fundamental steps such as setting up a database on the number of poultry farms and population of fowl.
One United Nations staff member involved in bird flu prevention, who asked not to be named, said the Agriculture Ministry?s campaign management unit for its national bird flu control program was solely run out of Jakarta.
?Some regions don?t even have an animal husbandry office, or agriculture office, or even veterinarians,? the official said. ?While human avian influenza cases are decreasing, the number of poultry cases remains the same.?
January 26, 2009 SHARE THIS PAGE
Hera Diani
Public Complacency Sets In Even Though Bird Flu Threat Lingers
It had the feel of a victory celebration. A popular Indonesian rock song blasted from the ballroom of Kresna Hotel in the Central Java provincial district of Wonosobo during a bird flu ?festival? late last month. Local government officials who had gathered on stage to sing modified the lyrics into messages about the national eradication campaign against the H5N1 avian influenza virus.
Lost amid the party, which included arts performances and a bird flu poster competition for participants from 35 districts and towns in Central Java and Yogyakarta provinces, was the fact that there wasn?t really much to celebrate. While human fatalities from bird flu have become a rarity in Indonesia, the virus remains endemic among the poultry populations of the majority of Indonesia?s 33 provinces.
Local researchers have warned that the Indonesian version of the virus has changed, meaning it could be harder to contain, while some health officials and activists said they feared that the eradication campaign is showing signs of complacency.All the while, the specter of a global human bird flu pandemic capable of killing millions remains, with some international scientists saying one is inevitable.
In Wonosobo, a primarily farming district 240 kilometers east of Jakarta, bird flu is still found among poultry. The number of dead birds fell from 1,052 in 13 subdistricts in 2007 to 563 in eight subdistricts in 2008, but officials are quick to admit the threat is still out there.
Karyoto, who heads Wonosobo?s Animal Husbandry Office, said the local government had carried out programs to eradicate bird flu, from community training to poultry examination, rapid test, disinfectant spray and culling. But he said there seemed to no longer be a sense of urgency among local residents to continue the fight against the virus.
?The awareness is there, in a sense that people know about bird flu. But people still seem to take it for granted, and they don?t realize how dangerous it is. Maybe because there are no human cases in Wonosobo.?
Even in Sucen village in nearby Magelang district, where a 7-year-old girl died of bird flu in 2007, the sense of crisis has passed. Village chief Eny Muryani said local people often saw death as fate, although for several months after the girl died they obeyed a ban on backyard chicken coups and orders to cull sick fowl.
?People still think bird flu is a common poultry disease,? Eny said, adding that even livestock breeders and crop farmers don?t understand its severity. The village, she said, was often used as a shortcut by cargo trucks loaded with chickens trying to avoid government-run road inspection posts.
Triono, the father of Qummi Layla, the girl who died of bird flu, remains baffled by his daughter?s death.
?We?ve never had poultry, all of our neighbors? poultry were caged and my daughter didn?t like to eat chicken,? he said. ?She also never swam in the river, where the farmers used to throw their dead chickens.?
Triono, who now has a 1-year-old daughter, said he was still visited by bird flu researchers, health officials and journalists asking questions about Qummi?s death.
Even though bird flu stories are increasingly rare in local newspapers, Indonesia remains the world?s most-affected country, with 113 human deaths from 139 cases as of Jan. 19, according to the World Health Organization. The national government?s initial blase attitude toward fighting the virus even after 13 people died in 2005 not only alarmed foreign donors and international health officials, but prompted cynics to warn that any global pandemic would originate from Indonesia.
According to the WHO, the vast majority of human deaths here were caused by direct contact with infected poultry, such as children playing with them or adults butchering them or plucking their feathers. While there has indeed been progress in terms of the number of human cases ? the number of deaths fell from 45 in 2006 to 19 last year ? experts warn that a pandemic remains a serious threat.
Chairul Anwar Nidom, a leading bird flu researcher from Airlangga University in Surabaya, said that based on his research in 2008, the mutation model of the avian influenza virus has changed and was no longer considered common.
?Poultry no longer die when infected by the virus, but become virus carriers. The virus has changed rapidly,? he told the Jakarta Globe.
His findings were confirmed by poultry disease expert Charles Rangga Tabbu from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, who said the virus today had different clinical symptoms than the first one discovered in Tangerang, Banten Province, in 2003.
?The virus no longer shows specific clinical symptoms, making it more difficult to recognize,? Charles told Kompas newspaper in a recent interview.
The change in symptoms, he said, was due to a virus mutation, as well as from vaccinated poultry coming into contact with the virus. Such poultry have weak antibodies as a result of being vaccinated, causing the virus to remain in their bodies and ultimately in their feces, Nidom said, who criticized vaccinations as part of the bird flu eradication program.
?When human gets sick, the poultry shouldn?t be vaccinated. Let the poultry get infected by the virus and die,? he said.
?Vaccinations press the virus and keep poultry from getting sick, but as a result, the virus is carried everywhere.?
Nidom said surveillance and reforming operations at poultry farms to improve sanitation was more effective than vaccines, but ?unfortunately, the authorized government institution, in this case the Ministry of Agriculture, has been slow in doing so.?
The ministry has been widely criticized for its perceived slow response to the bird flu threat and failing to take fundamental steps such as setting up a database on the number of poultry farms and population of fowl.
One United Nations staff member involved in bird flu prevention, who asked not to be named, said the Agriculture Ministry?s campaign management unit for its national bird flu control program was solely run out of Jakarta.
?Some regions don?t even have an animal husbandry office, or agriculture office, or even veterinarians,? the official said. ?While human avian influenza cases are decreasing, the number of poultry cases remains the same.?