GOVERNMENT REACTION
In recent years, as H5N1 continues to spread all across Asia, various governments reacted differently to the threat. The world has watched with interest as governments openly admitted that avian flu is in their country. The world has also cringed as governments unwillingly revealed that they have been keeping H5N1 a secret for months. Let us take a closer look...
"The truth will set you free"
A handful of governments have been open and honest when faced with a potential epidemic. For example, in December 2003 South Korean officials discovered H5N1 outbreaks on several poultry farms. They immediately notified the OIE (Office International des Epizooties) and within a week, announced plans to cull millions of chickens. Japan followed South Korea's example when they discovered outbreaks on chicken farms in January 2004. Many European countries, as well as Russia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan have also promptly reported avian flu outbreaks in wild birds and poultry. The number of countries that have reported bird flu outbreaks is frightening, to say the least. Even more disturbing, however, is the publicized government attempts to cover-up H5N1 outbreaks. China, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam... all of them have concealed H5N1 infections in poultry and humans as well.
A CLOSER LOOK: Avian Influenza and Government
When faced with an epidemic, some countries have been open and others more secretive. Take a look at the table below...
| Country | Official Admission | Actual Onset | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Source: The Monster at Our Door/Mike Davis | ||||
| South Korea | 12/12/03 | |||
| Vietnam | 1/8/04 | 10/03 | ||
| Japan | 1/12/04 | |||
| Thailand | 1/23/04 | 11/03 | ||
| Cambodia | 1/24/04 | |||
| China | 1/27/04 | Early '03 | ||
| Laos | 1/27/04 | |||
| Indonesia | 2/2/04 | 8/03 | ||
Government Scandal
Chinese officials have long denied allegations that intermittent H5N1 outbreaks in poultry have occurred. In January 2004, New Scientist published an article saying that China secretly immunized chickens with inactivated viruses, causing the evolution of an H5N1 'superstrain' known as genotype Z. Also in January, China refused to let WHO officials investigate a mysterious respiratory infection in Guangdong, saying that it was caused by the bacterium Chlamydia pneumoniae. Finally, in February, government officials admitted that H5N1 was indeed present in 12 provinces and cities.
"This disease is hundreds of years old and it can be prevented and treated. Vaccines are effective. No humans have been infected, so why this uproar?" said top Guangzhou official Chen Kaizhi in a speech given to the Guangdong People's Conference. He continued, saying: "In the past when life was hard, we hoped for a disease among our chickens so that we got to eat chicken. When a chicken at home dropped its head, we said, 'good, now we get to eat chicken.' Now we are so advanced that people are not allowed to eat diseased chicken."
Indonesia and Vietnam also admitted that they had also concealed poultry and human outbreaks. In Indonesia, officials admitted in February that they had been concealing knowledge of an H5N1 outbreak in their country since August 2003. Bungaran Saragih, the Indonesian agriculture minister stated that H5N1 had circulated in 80 districts and had killed 15 million chickens to date. He went on to say that the H5N1 strain posed no threat to humans. In Vietnam, agriculture officials had known of several H5N1 outbreaks dating back to October 2003. After the deaths of several people, Vietnamese officials finally appealed to the WHO for help on January 5, 2004, at the same time admitting that an avian flu epidemic was occurring in two provinces.
However, the most disturbing alleged cover-up of all happened in Thailand. Chickens were suddenly dying on farms around the country in November 2003. A scientist tried to inform agriculture officials that the chickens were dying of the dreaded H5N1 strain, but he was ignored. When local farmers showed their dead chickens to agriculture officials, they said the cause of death was not medically related. Meanwhile, poultry giants, such as Charoen Pokphand (widely known as CP) were working overtime to process the revealing evidence. "Before November we were processing about 90,000 chickens a day. But from November to 23 January, we had to kill about 130,000 daily. It's our job to cut the birds up. It was obvious they were ill: their organs were swollen. We didn't know what the disease was, but we understood that the management was rushing to process the chickens before getting any veterinary inspection. We stopped eating [chicken] in October," says several trade unionists, who worked at a factory outside the capital.
Rumors of avian flu outbreaks spread, and Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and other high officials sat down to eat a large feast of several Thai-style chicken dishes on national television to assure the public that the chicken was safe to eat. CP and other big poultry producers repeatedly said that avian flu was not in Thailand. But the Thailand government and the big poultry companies could not deny the truth any longer. Political pressure forced the Prime Minister to admit that H5N1 were indeed occurring in the country. Newspapers carried stories that stated that the government and the commercial poultry companies paid contract farmers with infected poultry to keep silent. Prime Minister Thaskin denied allegations of a cover-up, saying instead that a misinterpretation of procedures was at fault. It turns out that the government had told the large poultry producers of the outbreaks in December and gave them antiviral medicine to protect their flocks. Small producers were left in the dark, and their flocks were vulnerable to infection. Because of this brewing scandal, the EU, Japan, and South Korea immediately embargoed poultry imports from Thailand.