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Bali airport in 'chaos' as flu pandemic drill ends
JUST A DRILL: A man is taken to a makeshift emergency room at Ngurah Rai airport in Denpasar, Bali, during an exercise Sunday to test the response to a bird flu pandemic
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JUST A DRILL: A man is taken to a makeshift emergency room at Ngurah Rai airport in Denpasar, Bali, during an exercise Sunday to test the response to a bird flu pandemic. (JP/R. Berto Wedhatama)It was not business as usual at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar, Bali, on Sunday morning.
Security was heightened throughout the airport, but this time it had nothing to do with terrorism, but was part of a simulation to test the country's response to an avian influenza pandemic.
With surgical masks and radios, airport security, police officers and local administration officials stopped vehicles outside the airport and asked drivers and passengers for IDs.
All were asked if they were residents of Dangin Tukadaya in Jembrana or if they had visited the village in the last two days. Vehicles coming from the village were sprayed with disinfectant and all passengers and drivers were told to report to a nearby tent for health checks.
Further checks were done inside the airport, including at the departure terminal where two thermal scanners were placed to screen all passengers.
Anyone with a temperature of 38 degrees Celsius or above and who showed symptoms of influenza or respiratory problems would not be allowed to leave, being sent instead to a field hospital for further examination.
There were sporadic commotions as people refused to comply with officials' orders to report to a nearby office where they would be questioned about their time in Bali -- checking if they had been to Dangin Tukadaya village or had contact with villagers there.
Complaints were mostly about fear of missing flights.
Japanese national Etsuko Fukuoka and her daughter Amari Fukuoka and Etsuko's friend Reiko Yamamoto said they were not allowed to enter the departure terminal because they were returning from Dangin Tukadaya village.
This "unusual business" was part of an avian influenza pandemic simulation, which previously took place at Dangin Tukadaya village, about a two-hour drive west of Denpasar.
The airport was the final venue for the three-day simulation, allowing officials the chance to see how an emergency could be handled at the international gateway.
The head of the airport's healthcare unit, Nur Hasan, said there were no delays or schedule adjustments at the airport as a result of the simulation, adding that airline associations had been invited to take part in the simulation.
"They (airlines) are very supportive and it doesn't take long so there is no need to delay the flights," he said.
Some (real) passengers who had to go through the checks, including filling out health status declarations, said they understood the need to organize the simulation.
Couple Ni Made Sutria and Joseph Headley said they were at first surprised to see the extra security checks, reminding them of the measures that were taken in the wake of the Bali terrorist bombings.
"I didn't know what was going on. I was in the backseat so they asked my driver to show his ID card.
"Now I know. It (the simulation) is a good thing, it's very important," said Headley.
Sunday's drill, funded by the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and involving at least 1,000 people, ended the three-day bird flu simulation.
Now the real work begins for the organizers -- the Health Ministry, local administrations and international agencies -- to put into practice all they learned from the event.
"Our pandemic simulation may not have been as perfectly executed as we planned, but it was not a disappointment. We're going to have similar activities of various scale this year.
"With this kind of preparation, we can assure the world that we're preparing ourselves to contain emerging signs of pandemic in Indonesia," said the chief executive of the National Commission of Avian Influenza and Pandemic Preparedness, Bayu Krisnamurthi, in a speech during the closing ceremony for the simulation.
Also speaking during the ceremony was the Health Ministry's director general for communicable diseases and environmental health, I Nyoman Kandun, who said this exercise showed the world that Indonesia did not want to "export any diseases and instead wanted to contain them at home".
