MY NEIGHBOUR, THE WOULD BE MURDERER

Glossing over or covering up negative reports for the sake of economic and political expediency is a norm in many parts of the world. Indonesia, our closest neighbor seems to have developed this into an art and has deluded themselves for the past 2 years into thinking bird flu is only just a sneeze. Well, this sneeze may have already reached the shores of Malaysia and a time bomb may be ticking quietly away. Hari Raya will commence in less than 12 days and with the rising of consumption of chicken and chicken related products, how safe is safe? There may be instances of chickens and migratory birds dying right now. This may have been left unreported so as to avoid damping the coming celebration. In our rush to celebrate, the health and veterinary department must increase their vigilance but has this been worked out in detail ? They are our first line of defense not Tamiflu or Relenza (as proposed by the Australian Government) or I shudder to think our local council.
Again, let us not forget the flow of Indonesians coming back to Malaysia after Hari Raya, they may be carrying more than their usual share of health related issues.


Indonesia Neglected Bird Flu Until Too Late, Experts Say
By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign ServiceThursday, October 20, 2005

JAKARTA, Indonesia, Oct. 19 -- Indonesian officials covered up and then neglected a spreading bird flu epidemic for two years until it began to sicken humans this summer, posing a grave threat to people well beyond the country's borders, according to Indonesian and international health experts.
Unlike Southeast Asian countries that began to see human cases almost as soon as avian influenza was identified in their poultry, Indonesia had a generous head start to prevent an outbreak among people. Influenza specialists agree that the actual number of human cases is higher and expect it to rise with the approach of the rainy season…. At each step, the Indonesian government failed to take measures that could have broken the chain, while discouraging research into the outbreak.As a result, specialists are concerned that the cases in Indonesia pose a worldwide threat if the bird flu virus changes and becomes contagious among humans……..
….Indonesia, in particular, is a worry to U.N. and other international experts, partly because it has Southeast Asia's largest population of both people and poultry…..In an interview with The Washington Post this spring, Tri Satya Putri Naipospos, Indonesia's national director of animal health, first disclosed that officials had known chickens were dying from bird flu since the middle of 2003 but kept this secret until last year because of lobbying by the poultry industry. She also revealed that the government had not set aside any money this year to vaccinate poultry against the virus though officials had trumpeted this as the centerpiece of their strategy to contain the disease.
….A day after the article was published, the Agriculture Ministry fired her."They could not see the potential threat until there was an actual threat," she said in an interview with The Post last week. "I talked to the minister about it many times. He said a disease outbreak is not a national emergency, not a disaster."….
…..owners of major poultry companies, who have personal ties to senior Agriculture Ministry officials, insisted that any containment efforts be done secretly, Naipospos recalled. These eight farming conglomerates, which handle 60 percent of the country's poultry, feared that publicity would harm sales of chicken and eggs. Offering new details in her interview last week, Naipospos said owners even lobbied Indonesia's president at the time, Megawati Sukarnoputri…..
….Through this summer, avian flu continued to spread, often unreported, and containment efforts remained unfunded. Responding to public anxiety, Apriyantono went on television to oversee the culling of several dozen pigs and ducks on a farm 10 miles away. But when the cameras left, the campaign stalled. …..
Special correspondent Yayu Yuniar contributed to this report