Indonesia “covered up” bird flu, newspaper reports
Indonesian officials “covered up and then neglected” an epidemic of avian influenza in poultry for two years, allowing it to spread among flocks and then to people, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.
The newspaper quoted an Indonesian microbiologist as saying authorities argued about whether the virus killing chickens was in fact H5N1, and then tried to deal with it quietly.
As a result, the virus spread for two years, with little public word until it began infecting people. H5N1 bird flu has killed four people in Indonesia.
“If the government had acted sooner to stamp it out, there would be no outbreak. They have wasted so much time,” the newspaper quoted Indonesian microbiologist Chairul Nidom as saying.
The newspaper also quoted Indonesia’s former national director of animal health, Tri Satya Putri Naipospos, as saying chickens began dying from H5N1 in Indonesia in 2003 but the government covered it up because of lobbying from the poultry industry.
“They said, ‘It’s better to do it with confidentiality. Do a hidden, silent operation,’” Naipospos was quoted as saying. “I said, ‘It won’t work if you do a silent operation. This is a disease that can’t be hidden. It’s too risky.’”
Naipospos was fired from her job in September. “I was dismissed today because the minister considered I have failed in handling bird flu,” Naipospos told Reuters at the time.
H5N1 bird flu first emerged in Hong Kong in 1997, killing or forcing the destruction of million of birds, infecting 18 people and killing six of them.
It re-emerged in 2003 and has now been found in flocks across Asia and into Europe, as far west as European Russia and Romania. It spreads quickly, kills chickens and can occasionally infect people, with often fatal results.
At least 61 people in Asia have died of H5N1 infections, out of 118 known cases, and experts believe H5N1 could mutate at any time to become easily transmitted from person to person, causing a pandemic.
World Health Organization officials and diplomats have been urging countries to immediately ask for international help if they get an H5N1 outbreak.
The officials quoted by the Post said Indonesia did precisely what public health experts had feared.
In January 2004, Nidom publicly announced his findings about H5NI and Indonesia’s Agriculture Ministry did as well.
“It was too late. The virus was everywhere,” Nidom told the Post.
Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono said the Indonesian government considered bird flu a matter of great concern.
“That means our attention is very high on how to address this problem,” Apriyantono told the Post. “The thing is, we don’t want to publicize too much about bird flu because of the effect on our farms. Prices have dropped very drastically.”
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