The story here is not the outbreak, which Flublogia was tracking a week ago, but that Antara, Indonesia’s official news agency, is reporting it as genuine H5N1: Bird flu kills tens of chickens in Bengkulu. Excerpt:
Bird flu virus has reportedly killed tens of chickens of residents in six villages of Kepahyang district, Bengkulu Province, over the past two months.
At least 75 chickens had perished believed to be caused by the bird flu virus, Coordinator of Bengkulu Province`s Bird Flu Monitoring Center Emran Kuswadi said here Saturday.
All of the dead chickens were found in six villages of three sub-districts, Kepahiyang district, he said.
“We have examined the remaining alive chickens in the infected villages. We conclude that the dead chickens are positively caused by the H5N1 (bird flu) virus,” he said.
The bird flu-hit villages were Bandung Baru, Tangsi Baru, Kepahyang Indah, Taba Santing, Penanjung Panjang Atas and Pensiunan. They were located in the sub-districts of Kabawetan, Tebat Karai and Kepahyang, he said.
Kuswadi said his men had burned at least 56 dead chickens and their cages, and then buried them. These chickens were found in the villages of Bandung Baru, Taba Canting and Penanjung Panjang Atas.
Antara’s first report simply described the deaths of over a thousand chickens as a kind of gee-whiz story: Gee whiz, what could have caused this strange event?
Even so, any report at all is a big step for Indonesia’s media, which are pretty clearly under government pressure not to talk about H5N1 unless absolutely necessary.
But the first report, and now this confirmation, make me feel like an old-fashioned Kremlinologist, trying to figure out what’s going on in the USSR based on who’s standing next to Stalin at this year’s May Day parade.
The government in Jakarta is either growing up or feeling less stress about avian flu, even with another confirmed victim exactly a month ago. But who (or WHO) knows what’s really going on there?
