Bird dead, how to handle?

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Wed, 08/29/2007 1:49 PM  |  Opinion

On Aug. 26 I found a dead wild bird in my yard. I am living in Bali near the area where bird flu related deaths have occurred.

Since I was worried about the possible risk connected with dead birds, I tried to contact some authority to guide me on how to handle this situation.

I tried to reach the main hospital in Bali, Sanglah, and the answer was to go there if sick but they do not know anything regarding dead birds or chickens.

Next I tried to contact 110, the emergency number of the police: there was no answer. I tried then with the health and animal departments: again no answer.

I then called a newspaper office and spoke with a journalist there: she did not know of any special procedure in place to handle the bird flu-related problems neither she was aware of any emergency number.

I tried then to contact the head of my village (in the Kerobokan area) and his reaction was: ""Just bury the bird, there is no problem."" How would he know?

Eventually I obtained, through a friend, the personal cell phone number of a doctor nice enough to put me in touch with two nice guys from the animal department who came to my house to check the bird four hours after I began my search for information.

Well this does not seem anywhere near a coordinated response to the bird flu problem.

I believe that the people concerned from the government side should be very active and disperse information through newspapers and TV, and I thought an emergency center had been set up to handle emergencies and distribute information to the general public. Well, nothing like this exists!

Bird flu is a very serious problem which requires a strong effort from the side of the civil servants to try to minimize the risk connected with it.

I hope this letter reaches some more reactive authority who will take some action, but mainly I look forward to many more such letter from the public to put strong pressure on these negligent guys and force them to take immediate action in line with the recommendations of the Indonesian government and the WHO.

GIUSEPPE VERDACCHI
Denpasar

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