# 2972
Over night a story appeared in the Jakarta Post, which Crof reported on (see A strange report from Indonesia) while I was was offline. In his commentary, he remarks about how curious he found this report. Follow this link to read his comments.
This report apparently stems from an interview conducted on the sidelines of a bird flu seminar held this week in Toraja, South Sulawesi given by Heru Setijanto of Coordinator of Komnas FBPI (Indonesia’s National Bird Flu Commission).
Aside from the statements that Indonesia is unprepared to deal with a pandemic (and let’s face it, who is?) another interesting tidbit is the revelation that the case count at the Health Ministry is 145 cases with 121 fatalities.
According to the information provided to the WHO, the official case count still remains at 141 cases with 115 fatalities.
Also curious is that the total case count increased by only 4, but the fatalities jumped by 6.
This, by the way, isn’t the first statement from a Komnas Official that differs from the Health Ministry’s official count (see Indonesian Official: Four More Bird Flu Fatalities).
Of course, the true number of cases in Indonesia is unknown, since testing and surveillance often fails to detect cases. A number of people have died, been buried, and in retrospect are assumed to have succumbed to the H5N1 virus – but are not counted.
Others, no doubt, simply elude detection.
So the `official number’ is really only an indication of the frequency of cases, not a true count.
It is feared bird flu could become more frightening
M. Azis Tunny , THE JAKARTA POST , RANTEPAO, TORAJA | Sat, 04/04/2009 10:21 AM | Headlines
There is a need to raise awareness of bird flu because of a real threat: It could turn into something much more frightening than the H5N1 virus.
The frightening thing would be if the virus caused a pandemic if and when it became able to spread among humans, Coordinator of Surveillance and Monitoring at the National Commission on Bird Flu Control and Awareness on Influenza Pandemic (Komnas FBPI) Heru Setijanto said Friday.
Setijanto said Indonesia was currently ranked highest in the world in the number of deaths from bird flu, and was unprepared as to how to deal with a pandemic.
“The incubation period of the virus is very fast and deadly when contracted by humans. We are not ready to face a pandemic if the situation arises,” Setijanto told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of a national seminar on a Bird Flu Pandemic Response Simulation in Toraja, South Sulawesi.
He said Indonesia was ill-equipped to face the bird flu pandemic because training was only provided so far to personnel at government ministries and agencies.
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