Australia to Fund Further Anti-Flu Medicine for Indonesia
Posted on: Monday, 26 September 2005, 03:01 CDT
Text of media release from the office of Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer, carried by Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website on 26 September
I am pleased to announce that the Australian government will purchase an additional 40,000 courses of the anti-viral medication Tamiflu to combat the recent outbreak of avian influenza in Indonesia.
This funding will help Indonesia develop a stockpile of Tamiflu which will be used to treat suspected victims and people who have been in immediate close contact with them, and hospital workers in 44 identified avian influenza national referral hospitals.
The Australian government is committed to taking a strong leadership role in combating avian influenza in the Asia-Pacific and this assistance demonstrates our intention to work closely with regional partners as they implement their plans to treat victims and prevent spread of the disease. As well as 133m dollars allocated for prevention and preparedness in Australia, we have committed over 18m dollars since 2003 to tackle avian influenza and SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome] in our region.
Australian Department of Health officials have recently been in Indonesia for discussions with senior Indonesian officials and the World Health Organization (WHO) country office.
This latest funding of Tamiflu supplies will bring the total Australian contribution to recent WHO requests for Indonesia to 1.25m dollars. It follows Australia's initial funding for 10,000 emergency courses of the drug.
This first emergency consignment of Tamiflu has been sourced and ordered by the WHO and is currently on its way to Jakarta, due to arrive this week.
As with the initial support, this funding will be provided to the WHO which will again source and distribute the Tamiflu to identified, targeted sites to maximize containment of any potential outbreak and minimize the risk of an outbreak spreading.
In addition to providing this immediate assistance for Indonesia, we are taking a wider view and working vigorously to encourage the broader international community to engage seriously on this issue. In particular, we want to ensure that effectively addressing avian influenza in the Asia-Pacific region is a strong focus of the forthcoming APEC [Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum] meeting in South Korea.
The Australian government has now pledged a total of 5.55m dollars in assistance to Indonesia to help combat avian influenza.
Source: BBC Monitoring Newsfile
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