Indonesia Warns of Possible Bird Flu Epidemic
By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 21, 2005; 9:33 AM
JAKARTA, Indonesia, Sept. 21 -- Indonesia could be on the brink of a bird flu epidemic if the virus continues to accelerate, the country's health minister warned Wednesday as the number of suspected cases in the capital continued to mount.
Siti Fadillah Supari's remarks came as a pair of young girls with bird flu symptoms died in Jakarta hospitals and two days after the government declared it was taking "extraordinary" measures to stem the spread of the virus, including the mandatory hospitalization of anyone with suspicious symptoms.
The health ministry has already confirmed four previous deaths from avian influenza, most recently a 37-year-old Jakarta woman who died two weeks ago. Since then, at least 10 other people have been admitted to hospitals with high fevers and breathing difficulties symptomatic of bird flu, including the two girls, ages 5 and 2, who died Wednesday. Indonesian health officials said they remain unsure whether these children had bird flu and are awaiting further test results from a specialized Hong Kong laboratory.
Though bird flu was first detected in Indonesian poultry more than two years ago and then spread across the majority of the country's provinces, health ministry officials had minimized the threat, saying the virus was not infecting humans as it had elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
But after a 38-year-old auditor and two of his daughters died from the disease in a wealthy Jakarta suburb two months ago, the health ministry and officials from the World Health Organization stepped up efforts to control its spread. Apathy has quickly shifted to alarm with a large, front-page headline in the Jakarta Post asking Wednesday: "Bird flu outbreak: Is it time to panic?"
Even as Supari urged calm, she reflected the confusion and anxiety now taking hold. The minister initially told journalists Wednesday that the virus was already epidemic in Indonesia but later called reporters to say she had misspoken, clarifying that she believed only that the disease could become epidemic.
Since early last year, bird flu has killed at least 63 people in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia and infected an increasing number of bird species in 12 countries across the breadth of Asia.
United Nations health experts warn the virus could either mutate or obtain new genetic material allowing it to spread more easily among humans, sparking a global pandemic and killing tens of millions of people. So far, only a few victims of bird flu are suspected of contracting the disease from other people, in nearly all cases other family members.
In Indonesia, Jakarta's governor shuttered the country's largest zoo on Monday after 19 birds tested positive for avian flu. He said it would remain closed for at least three weeks while the facilities were sterilized. But prospects for reopening any time soon dimmed when officials reported a day later that a zoo vendor and guide had possibly come down with the illness and been admitted to the capital's leading infectious disease hospital. Test results are expected this week.
On Tuesday, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono summoned his top health and agriculture advisers to discuss steps to contain the outbreak. Officials said the government would import enough of the anti-viral drug oseltamivir to treat 1,000 people, and provide free medical care for those believed to be infected.
Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyanto added that the government would carry out a mass cull of poultry and pigs wherever there was a serious outbreak. Indonesian officials had long rebuffed the advice of international health experts that birds be slaughtered in areas of infection. Instead, Indonesia has relied on a national poultry vaccination that government veterinarians and farmers acknowledged has been sorely under funded and spotty at best.
Apriyanto had previously said the government could not afford to carry out culling because it did not have the money to compensate farmers for their lost livestock. But agriculture officials said this week they would spend $13 million this year to slaughter sick flocks and were seeking a new law to punish farmers who refuse to cooperate.
