Indonesian minister accuses West of 'exploiting' bird flu
A man passes a chicken displayed in a market in Medan, Indonesia. Bird flu killed a three-year-old boy and a teenager at the weekend, bringing the country's death toll to 104.
Photo: AP
Mark Forbes, Jakarta
February 20, 2008
INDONESIAN Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari claims the United States and World Health Organisation are part of a global conspiracy to profit from the spread of bird flu, and the US may use samples to produce biological weapons.
The views of Dr Supari, outlined in her new book, It's Time for the World to Change, threaten to undermine efforts to control the spread of avian influenza and prevent it becoming a global pandemic.
Indonesia is the new hot spot for the virus, with recent deaths raising the local toll to 104, nearly half the world's total.
Despite claims by Dr Supari — described on the book's cover as the "divine hand behind avian influenza" — that she has forged a new agreement to share virus samples and allow all nations access to resulting vaccines, Indonesia still blocks the sharing of samples from human victims.
Inquiries by The Age reveal the ban has been widened to include samples from chickens, which are infected across Indonesia. More than 200 have not received export permits to be sent to an Australian laboratory for analysis.
Tracking the spread of the virus and its mutations is essential to guard against it jumping into human communities on a larger scale, experts say.
In her book, Dr Supari says WHO laboratories forwarded influenza viruses to Western companies so they could profit by selling vaccines back to developing countries. "The system of world health management has been very exploitative," she says. "It has been controlled by inhumanly (sic) desires, based on the greediness to raise capital and to control the world."
Some Indonesian samples were sent to a US Defence Department laboratory, Dr Supari says. She says she had to act because "some of our seed viruses had been in a laboratory known as a facility developing biological weapons in a superpower country".
Privately, foreign experts and officials say Dr Supari's belief that she is engaged on a God-driven crusade against an evil and "neo-colonialist" world health system have caused her to lose touch with reality.
Compromise solutions to ensure vaccines are shared are being ignored, they say.
International officials are dismayed that Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono appears to have endorsed the book, writing its introduction.
Flying in the face of the facts, Dr Yudhoyono supports Dr Supari's claim that the spread of the virus is under control in Indonesia, stating that the "occurrence rate and the number of affected areas are decreasing".
WHO refused to comment on the book or the virus-sharing stand-off. A spokesman said: "This matter is a sensitive case at present."
No US officials were available for comment. They are believed to have protested, resulting in the book being withdrawn from sale almost as soon as it was released last week. Few copies were sold, but the publisher said the Government-funded book would be available again soon.
In it, Dr Supari says Indonesia's bird flu victims did not die in vain: "They all died as martyrs of humanity for the betterment of the world health management."
She also alleges WHO's virus-sharing system exploits the blood, cells and antibodies of the powerless. "And perhaps it would be more dangerous when in the end they would take our brain cell(s) as well, to be re-engineered and create a new generation of slaves."
Yesterday was my 2nd wedding anniversary. Me and my husband celebrated it with a special menu for the dinner. We did not have any chances to dining outside since it was a busy day for both of us, but we still could manage to have dinner together at home.
