Bird Flu Still A Problem in Indonesia?

It would seem that bird flu is still a problem in Indonesia. To be honest, I do the rounds of sites focusing on Indonesian news on an almost daily basis (OK, I lie, I do it on a daily basis).

One story that I have not seen for a while is bird flu related deaths. This is in rather stark contrast to when the bird flu scare first arrived in Indonesia and the fear that it would develop into a pandemic that could potential wipe out tens of thousands of Indonesians where death was an almost daily reporting occurrence.

So, it is an attention grabber when Antara puts out a news bite that highlights a health official in Central Java confirming that the recent death of a young girl was bird flu related. The girl dies in Sukuharjo. However, the health official noted that despite the confirmation from the lab in Jakarta that the young girl was positive for bird flu, the health department was still not sure as to where the girl was infected.

We still have family that live in Indonesia, a rural kampung outside of Java, so it is always a worry.

USA & HIV / AIDS -- A Travel Decision...

It seems that the US has finally decided to make its decision to overturn the ban on HIV infected people travelling to the US a reality. President Obama has signed an order that will see the ban lifted from early next year. Hopefully, the other dozen or so countries that continue to ban HIV infected travellers will soon follow the US lead and remove the bans in their respective countries as well.

HIV / AIDS treatment has come a long way since the early eighties. So much so, that it is more a chronic illness than the death sentence it once was. People are living much longer with proper treatment, and the majority are able to live full lives and make lasting contributions to the communities in which they live. To discriminate against them on their HIV status is wrong.

Interestingly, there has not been a single HIV conference in the US since 1993. The ban on HIV+ travellers has meant that HIV+ researchers and activists would not have been able to attend to participate in any conference held. If you want to be the leader in any endeavour then you must act like the leader. This decision to remove the ban on HIV+ travellers is definitely a sign of leadership in the fight against HIV / AIDS.

Bajaj and Kancil

I usually take an ojek (motorcycle taxi) to work in the morning and again in the evening to get home. It is fast compared to other modes of transport as motorcycle riders are as crazy as everyone else on Jakarta's roads. So, weaving in and out of traffic is the norm here. If you ever need to test your bravery or courage levels, then taking a ride on an ojek would be one way of finding out.

Anyways, this post is not about ojeks but about bajajs (pronounced ba-jay -- first photo) and there planned replacements the kancil (second photo). A bajaj is simply a three-wheeled 2-stroke motorcycle with a covered passenger compartment at the back. These are supposed to be being phased out and replaced with a new gas-powered traffic nightmare known as a kancil.

This replacement plan has sort of been happening but not really happening since 2001. The biggest hindrance to the replacement program is the cost of the new kancils. The new kancil price is set somewhere between IDR 20 and 30 million. A bajaj driver would be able to trade in his bajaj and get IDR 7.5 million for the trade. This would then be used as a down payment on the kancil.

In theory this sounds like a pretty good deal. If you are managing to pull in somewhere between IDR 30,000 and IDR 50,000 per day before expenses then it is going to be some time before you get out of the credit death trap. Nevertheless, most bajajs are not owner-operator deals but rather businesses that own 10, 15, 20, or however many bajajs and hire them out and take a rental fee.

This brings me to the real reason for this post. On my way to work yesterday I really noticed the number of bajajs polluting the city and how bad this is for my health and the sweet-smelling aroma that permeates my clothes. The downside of taking an ojek to work is that it is a dirty business. Jakarta is dusty and polluted place and the bajajs add to this. I arrived at work smelling like I had just mowed the lawn. This is the unfortunate bonus of being caught in traffic behind a bajaj spewing out rancid 2-stroke fumes.

For a government that talks a good talk about cleaning up the city and ridding it of bajajs in an attempt to reduce pollution, some estimates suggest that pollution in Jakarta could be reduced by up to 25% if you got bajajs off the roads, it does not walk a good walk. The government needs to subsidize the program because any outlay that it makes now will be more than made up for in future health costs and care savings that pollution-related respiratory illness and other illnesses would give rise to.

I could continue to rail on my other issues like the non-existent emissions tests that are supposed to get polluting vehicles off the roads. Perhaps that is a post for another day.