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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Indonesia accused of hiding bird flu

Alan Sipress Washington Post

JAKARTA, Indonesia – 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. But since July, it has registered more human cases than any other country, including three deaths confirmed by international testing. Influenza specialists agree that the actual number of human cases is higher and expect it to rise with the approach of the rainy season.

Health experts say the Indonesian epidemic started in commercial poultry farms, spread among the tens of millions of free-range chickens raised in back yards across the country and then finally infected people. 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.

“If the government had acted sooner to stamp it out, there would be no outbreak. They have wasted so much time,” said Chairul A. Nidom, an Indonesian microbiologist who first identified the virus in this country’s birds. “What terrifies me is that it just won’t affect Indonesia.”

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warned that the chances were increased that avian flu would move to the Middle East and Africa.

Health experts stress, however, that a human pandemic is still most likely to erupt in East Asia. Bird flu is already deeply entrenched among Asian poultry. Moreover, many countries in the region lack basic agricultural safeguards to prevent the disease from spreading to humans and health care systems able to contain the virus if it does.

Since 2003, at least 60 people in Southeast Asia have died of the illness.