【试题2】LAST week, Indonesia announced its 43rd human death from bird flu. It has now rec
【试题2】
LAST week, Indonesia announced its 43rd human death from bird flu. It has now recorded more fatalities than any other nation, and in stark contrast to all other countries its death toll is climbing regularly. It looks as though things will get worse before they get better.
The Indonesian government claims to be committed to fighting the disease, caused by the H5N1 virus, but it does not seem to want to spend much of its own money doing so. After the international community pledged $900m in grants and slightly more in very soft loans to combat the spread of bird flu globally and to help nations prepare for a possible human flu pandemic[2], Indonesia put in a request for the full $900m—all of it in grants.
A national bird-flu commission was created in March to co-ordinate the country&39;s response but it has yet to be given a budget. Its chief, meanwhile, has just been given a second full-time job—heading efforts to rebuild the part of Java devastated by an earthquake in May.
Observers say that the available money is being mis-spent, with the focus on humans rather than on animals. The agriculture ministry, for example, is asking for less money for next year than it got this year. This is despite hundreds of thousands of hens dying every month, to say nothing of infected cats, quails, pigs and ducks. Farmers are being compensate at only 2,000 rupiah (21 cents) per bird, well below market price, thereby discouraging them from reporting outbreaks. The country&39;s veterinary surveillance services are inadequate. Pledges to vaccinate hundreds of millions of birds have not been met.
The UN&39;s Food and Agriculture Organisation is starting to establish local disease-control centres to cope with the effects of a virulent mutation, should one occur, but reckons that only one-third of the country will be covered by year&39;s end. A bunch of international do-gooders[4] that is trying to plug some of the gaps is finding it hard to raise money.