2008-04-25 09:18:18 -

BALI, Indonesia (AP) - Indonesia launched a drill Friday that will test the ability of the nation hardest hit by bird flu to respond to a potentially catastrophic pandemic. Thousands were taking part, from local residents to government officials.
The three-day simulation started on the resort island of Bali with one of the mock patients

dying and 14 others falling ill. It will continue with the isolation of their village, where a field hospital will treat people with flu-like symptoms.
Before the end of the drill Sunday, officials will try to prevent infected travelers from leaving the international airport and spreading the virus to other countries.
«This is a very important event from the perspective of public health,» said Subhash Salunke, of the World Health Organization. «It will certainly help better equip Indonesia in the event of a pandemic. But other countries struggling to contain bird flu outbreaks can and will learn from this exercise as well.
Indonesia has been worst affected by bird flu since it started ravaging Asian poultry stocks in late 2003, with its 107 human deaths accounting for nearly half the 240 recorded fatalities worldwide. The government has come under fire for failing to slow the spread of the virus, which is endemic in poultry stocks in all but two of the countries' 33 provinces.
Other countries, like Vietnam, succeeded is containing bird flu thanks largely to strong political will, mass culling of chickens in infected areas and aggressive vaccination campaigns. But Indonesia says there are limits to what its cash-strapped government can do.
The virus remains hard for people to catch, but scientists worry it could mutate into a form that spreads more easily between humans, with the potential to kill millions worldwide. Indonesia is seen as a potential hotspot for that to happen because it has hundreds of millions of backyard chickens.
That makes the drill on Bali especially relevant, said Nyoman Kandun, a senior Health Ministry official. Among more than 5,000 people taking part were government officials, law enforcement officers, doctors and villagers.
«We want to show the world that we are prepared, that we are ready to contain and stop this virus in the event of a pandemic,» he said.


The simulation began Friday in the village of Dangin Tukadaya _ 150 kilometers (100 miles) west of Bali's capital Denpasar. Participants in the drill were given unconfirmed reports of human-to-human infections in the village that sickened 15 unrelated people, one of whom later died.
Ketut Suwetri, the wife of one of the patients sickened in the scenario, said after being questioned by health officials that the experience taught her a lot.
«I knew almost nothing about bird flu before today,» she said, adding however that now that she knows, she's terrified about the dangers it could pose.