Snowy Owl
Retired in 2010, In Memoriam
What we have done so far on bird flu may not be enough'
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20060926.A03&irec=2
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]The government seems to have responded to the emergence of avian influenza in humans at a snail's pace. Why?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] It is a complicated issue here and it is absolutely not true to say the government has done nothing about it. We detected the disease in poultry as far back as 2003. The outbreak paralyzed some poultry centers in Central Java then. We declared the incident an extraordinary situation in poultry. However, the disease only began receiving huge attention after taking a toll on humans. I believe at that time none of us imagined the disease would develop rapidly like today.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Since bird flu broke out in poultry we have adopted measures that meet WHO and FAO standards to cope with the disease. We have culled fowl within a radius of one kilometer of any outbreak and vaccinated birds within a three-kilometer radius.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Why do these measures appear to have been ineffective, as we see the virus continue to spread to other areas? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] People here have gradually begun to understand the danger of this virus, thanks to media coverage and local health campaigns. But there is also another aspect that is completely foreign to other countries. I remember quite well how a poultry farmer in Karo, North Sumatra, Pak Simbolon, who was so cooperative with us when we told him that his chickens must be culled. He was willing to take the Rp 12,500 compensation, but then he asked an honest question: What will I do to feed my family if you cull all my chickens? We were confronted with a tough question on the economic survival of these farmers. Here, there are a lot of human dynamics which are very delicate and unique. These aspects are not as simple as people think.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] But a policy is a policy, isn't it? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] It's true and we did wipe out the chicken population in the neighborhood, but this kind of problem makes us uneasy to move because there is the human aspect there.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] What's your approach then? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Principally we are still adopting the same approach as before. First, in general, we are continuing surveillance. This surveillance is ostensibly enough for situations where there are no human fatalities. Once there is a human infection then we will start culling, using standards set by the WHO and FAO.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Basically, we have integrated surveillance to enable us to attack the virus at the source and execute the three programs of vaccination, culling compensation and biosecurity in poultry centers. This virus is smart and swift so we have to be smarter and quicker.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] We have heard that even the policy makers are split when speaking about bird flu. How does the committee place itself between differing camps?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] That is human nature everywhere. Policy makers are just human beings too. Many respond with a cold shoulder and many others overreact. Ignorant people ask why we are making all this fuss about bird flu while in the last one-and-a-half years only 47 people have died. The number of people killed in traffic accidents is much higher than that. Or endemic dengue fever, which kills 2,000 people a year, not to mention the deaths caused by other diseases.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] This is not the right attitude, of course, because with avian influenza the intangible losses are far greater compared to the tangible ones.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[/FONT]
[/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]We want people to exercise personal hygiene, not to sleep near chickens, and if there are any dead chickens to report it to nearby health workers.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Do you think we are ready for a pandemic? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] My question is what if a fire razed this building, are we prepared for that? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] This country is facing myriad problems, natural disasters, social conflicts and many other unthinkable things, which forces us to only make short-term decisions or actions to address an issue. However, we must believe that a pandemic is possible, but on the other hand it could also be impossible.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]We have done our best with the knowledge we have, but what we have been doing may not be good enough. I don't want to boast, but we are trying to be prepared.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Yes, we do. But I have to be frank, if a pandemic occurs we would be facing huge losses due to our vast territory and population. We were overwhelmed by the tsunami in Aceh, and the fatalities from this disease could be greater than what we saw in Aceh. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] We cannot project in any detail the size and extent of any possible pandemic. We may have the statistics but we cannot know if they are accurate. Victims would include not only the dead but those who need treatment. At best, we want to prevent a pandemic.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] We have such a huge population and our projection is to stockpile 12 million pills. That's enough if there is only one or two incidents, but compared to our population of over 210 million that amount is far from enough. Concerning the stockpiling of drugs, my answer is the same if we were talking about the state budget.[/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]When we attended a meeting in Vienna earlier this year to discuss avian influenza, many experts agreed that dealing with this virus is like flying an airplane while making the plane. No one ever comes to totally correct and accurate decisions when dealing with something completely new.[/FONT]
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20060926.A03&irec=2
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]The government has stepped up its fight against avian influenza with the launch of a mass vaccination campaign earlier this month.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]The executive chairman of the National Committee for Avian Influenza Control and Pandemic Influenza Preparedness, Bayu Krisnamurthi, recently spoke with The Jakarta Post's Emmy Fitri about measures and plans designed to contain the outbreak of the disease.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]The government seems to have responded to the emergence of avian influenza in humans at a snail's pace. Why?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] It is a complicated issue here and it is absolutely not true to say the government has done nothing about it. We detected the disease in poultry as far back as 2003. The outbreak paralyzed some poultry centers in Central Java then. We declared the incident an extraordinary situation in poultry. However, the disease only began receiving huge attention after taking a toll on humans. I believe at that time none of us imagined the disease would develop rapidly like today.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Since bird flu broke out in poultry we have adopted measures that meet WHO and FAO standards to cope with the disease. We have culled fowl within a radius of one kilometer of any outbreak and vaccinated birds within a three-kilometer radius.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Why do these measures appear to have been ineffective, as we see the virus continue to spread to other areas? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] People here have gradually begun to understand the danger of this virus, thanks to media coverage and local health campaigns. But there is also another aspect that is completely foreign to other countries. I remember quite well how a poultry farmer in Karo, North Sumatra, Pak Simbolon, who was so cooperative with us when we told him that his chickens must be culled. He was willing to take the Rp 12,500 compensation, but then he asked an honest question: What will I do to feed my family if you cull all my chickens? We were confronted with a tough question on the economic survival of these farmers. Here, there are a lot of human dynamics which are very delicate and unique. These aspects are not as simple as people think.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] But a policy is a policy, isn't it? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] It's true and we did wipe out the chicken population in the neighborhood, but this kind of problem makes us uneasy to move because there is the human aspect there.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] What's your approach then? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Principally we are still adopting the same approach as before. First, in general, we are continuing surveillance. This surveillance is ostensibly enough for situations where there are no human fatalities. Once there is a human infection then we will start culling, using standards set by the WHO and FAO.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Basically, we have integrated surveillance to enable us to attack the virus at the source and execute the three programs of vaccination, culling compensation and biosecurity in poultry centers. This virus is smart and swift so we have to be smarter and quicker.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] We have heard that even the policy makers are split when speaking about bird flu. How does the committee place itself between differing camps?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] That is human nature everywhere. Policy makers are just human beings too. Many respond with a cold shoulder and many others overreact. Ignorant people ask why we are making all this fuss about bird flu while in the last one-and-a-half years only 47 people have died. The number of people killed in traffic accidents is much higher than that. Or endemic dengue fever, which kills 2,000 people a year, not to mention the deaths caused by other diseases.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] This is not the right attitude, of course, because with avian influenza the intangible losses are far greater compared to the tangible ones.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] However, those who get too panicked do not help either.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica][/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]We are now focusing on an awareness campaign.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica][/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]Our theme is tanggap (responsive), not waspada (alarmed).
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica][/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]We want people to exercise personal hygiene, not to sleep near chickens, and if there are any dead chickens to report it to nearby health workers.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Do you think we are ready for a pandemic? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] My question is what if a fire razed this building, are we prepared for that? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] This country is facing myriad problems, natural disasters, social conflicts and many other unthinkable things, which forces us to only make short-term decisions or actions to address an issue. However, we must believe that a pandemic is possible, but on the other hand it could also be impossible.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] It is always better to prepare with preventive measures rather than reactive ones.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica][/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]We have done our best with the knowledge we have, but what we have been doing may not be good enough. I don't want to boast, but we are trying to be prepared.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Do we actually have a contingency plan?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Yes, we do. But I have to be frank, if a pandemic occurs we would be facing huge losses due to our vast territory and population. We were overwhelmed by the tsunami in Aceh, and the fatalities from this disease could be greater than what we saw in Aceh. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] We cannot project in any detail the size and extent of any possible pandemic. We may have the statistics but we cannot know if they are accurate. Victims would include not only the dead but those who need treatment. At best, we want to prevent a pandemic.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] There has been endless discussion about the stockpiling of Tamiflu. Do we have enough in case of an emergency?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica] We have such a huge population and our projection is to stockpile 12 million pills. That's enough if there is only one or two incidents, but compared to our population of over 210 million that amount is far from enough. Concerning the stockpiling of drugs, my answer is the same if we were talking about the state budget.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] As long as disease management is the sole burden of the government, it will never be enough.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] As long as disease management is the sole burden of the government, it will never be enough.
[/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]When we attended a meeting in Vienna earlier this year to discuss avian influenza, many experts agreed that dealing with this virus is like flying an airplane while making the plane. No one ever comes to totally correct and accurate decisions when dealing with something completely new.[/FONT]