INDONESIA: Journalists at Risk of Bird Flu Contagion

Jakarta, 30 June (AKI) - An independent media support group in Indonesia has launched an appeal for greater protection for journalists reporting on bird flu in the country. In an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI), a spokesman for Internews Indonesia, Sonny Krishnan Inbaraj explained that "some large media organisations have procedures in place to protect their reporters in the field, but it is the smaller ones that do not." "I guess it is mainly due to the ignorance of the editors and news managers themselves," said Inbaraj, who heads the group's Bird Flu Programme.

In Indonesia, the virus has now killed a total 39 people, the highest number of fatalities after Vietnam, with 42, and the virus responsible for the disease, the H5N1, is endemic among birds in the Indonesian archipelago.

Education on preventing and recognising symptoms is a key factor in efforts to stop the spread of the virus, experts say. It is estimated that, should a global pandemic occur, some seven millions people could die worldwide. So far 130 humans have died from bird flu.

Journalists in Indonesia serve the fundamental aim of informing people about the disease, but their job is particularly dangerous both due to the lack of guidelines and the poor quality of the protection equipment provided by media organisations.

Two journalists were recently hospitalised because they might had caught the virus while reporting in infected areas, doctors said.

Inbaraj, who has since May has been travelling the country holding seminars on protection from bird flu for media professionals, added that "right now, initiatives that come from the reporters are out of their own accord, forking out their own money to buy face-masks, gloves and proper boots."

"An important part of the training focuses on the health risks posed to news teams covering avian flu outbreaks and also on preparations that news organisations should be making for their reporters, before they are sent out" he continued.

The Internews Indonesia's Bird Flu Program, supported by UNICEF and the Japanese government, will end in July with a round-table hosting all chief-editors of the main Indonesian media organisations.

The risk of a pandemic in Indonesia has grown significantly since the first confirmed case of human-to-human trasmission - between a father and a son. A report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) also revealed that human-to-human transmission had most likely occurred in a 'cluster' of deaths among seven blood relatives infected with H5N1 in a remote farming village on Indonesia's Sumatra island. Previously H5N1 could be transmitted only from animals to people.

The Brussels-based International News Safety Institute has issued basic health-safety guidelines for reporters covering stories on bird flu.

The guidelines include: avoiding direct contact with poultry that has no apparent symptoms, both alive and dead, keeping away from poultry faeces, washing hands as frequently as possible, using gloves, face-masks and boots and finally monitoring their health for ten days after leaving infected areas. Media staff are also asked to report to a hospital as soon as fever, cough or other flu symptoms should appear.