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How not to fight a flu pandemic

Peter Goff

There ain't nobody here but us chickens,' the fox shouted out to farmer Brown, who had heard a commotion coming from his hen house. The gullible farmer put his gun down and went back to the house, leaving the intruder to enjoy a midnight feast.

As the threat of a bird flu pandemic looms larger, the memories of how China tried and failed to brush the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak under the carpet come back to sow seeds of suspicion. One of the few things that spreads faster than a virus is panic, and nothing gives wings to panic like the whiff of a cover-up.

Some lessons have been learned, of course, and - particularly at the central level - efforts have been made to improve transparency. But at the local level many officials still seem to think lies and deception are the only tools of the crisis management trade.

Despite all the outbreaks that have been reported across the mainland, no human H5N1 cases have been reported here yet. Is that good fortune, or good information control? Recent developments in Hunan province do not inspire confidence. Reporters flocked to the province after 12-year-old He Yin ate a sick chicken and died. There they were told by officials, in no uncertain terms, that they were not welcome. Despite the fact that the central authorities and the World Health Organisation were saying more tests had to be conducted to see if she had bird flu, local cadres had a different take on it.

'She died of pneumonia, not bird flu. The case is closed. There are no further investigations going on. We will give you no further information. Please leave,' cadres told the media. It didn't tally, of course. A week later, a Xinhua report said further tests were indeed needed and bird flu 'could not be ruled out'. And while officials were brazenly declaring 'case closed', scores of health and agriculture officials were scurrying around in the background, doing extensive contact tracing. More than 200 people who had come into contact with those infected were being tested, including at least one who had serious flu symptoms.

Reporters who tried to get information on any of this activity were consistently told it was all in their furtive imaginations. Access was restricted and reporting was impeded - all of which inevitably helped to crank up the rumour mill.

Ironically, the WHO is of the view that, in this instance at least, officials were putting in a pretty decent effort to track and isolate the virus. But the fact that information was also being isolated resulted, of course, in the fear that someone had something to hide. Slick PR it is not. From Qinghai to Xinjiang to Anhui , similar tales have trickled out. No matter how loudly Beijing stresses the importance of transparency in the face of a health crisis, the concept is struggling to take root at the local level.

The publicity department is not helping matters either, it seems. Editors have been told to seek approval before running any reports on new outbreaks of bird flu and any related human or animal deaths. 'You get a phone call and a friendly chat,' said an editor of a Beijing-based magazine. 'They speak in vague terms and let you know there is a red line out there but don't say exactly where it is. The safest thing, of course, is to check with them before breaking a story about this. But they might not want it published, as they are very keen to avoid panicking the public.'

Fast, accurate reports are obviously essential in any efforts to combat bird flu. In view of China's abysmal record on the transparency front, the only way to avoid the international finger of blame is to be seen to be going beyond the call of duty.

Like farmer Brown, people are likely to be somewhat sceptical the second time around, and will take a bit of convincing.

Peter Goff is a Beijing-based journalist

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