Papua’s measles outbreak shows years of neglect
Indonesia’s battle to stem a deadly measles outbreak striking malnourished children in Papua is doomed to be repeated unless the government helps lift the isolated region out of grinding poverty, observers said. Some 800 children have fallen ill and as many as 100 others, mostly toddlers, are feared to have died in what Jakarta called an “extraordinary” outbreak that was first made public this month.
AFP reporters obtained rare access to an overwhelmed hospital in Agats, one of the worst-affected communities, witnessed railthin children with exposed rib cages lying on rickety beds or wandering foul-smelling hallways. One malnourished girl, hooked up to an IV drip, was seen lying on the floor of an underequipped hospital. The disease has proven especially deadly here as malnutrition makes children more susceptible, weakening their immune systems.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has ordered military and medical teams to bring supplies to remote villages in the far-flung province. Observers blame the crisis on a complex mix of government inaction, lack of jobs, logistical hurdles in reaching remote communities and resettlement efforts that pose a serious threat to traditional huntingbased lifestyles. A low-level separatist insurgency is also simmering in the region, fuelled by resentment over poor conditions and a fight for a bigger share of Papua’s rich natural resources.
Many Papuans live a semi-nomadic life in hard-to-reach areas of the jungle with almost no proper medical care, schools or other services, including access to clean water. In Ayam village, a ten-hour boat ride from the nearest major city, a tiny clinic lacked almost everything - including doctors - as its few nurses struggled to treat more than two dozen measles cases. Some locals worry what will happen when the medics leave. “What we really need is medicine and
food so our children here can be healthy again,” said 28-year-old father Yunus Komenemar, whose one-year-old son has measles. “The government is paying more attention, aid is coming in and there are (positive) changes, but we want it to last.”
Some 12,000 children with no symptoms have been treated, including with vaccinations, according to the health ministry, but in the past many Papuans have refused the shots that are seen as key to preventing outbreaks. ‘Isolation’ Indonesia has opened new district governments across Papua and tried to settle locals into permanent villages, but many of the new offices are not equipped to handle the huge task ahead. And resettlement forces locals to adapt to a new lifestyle including adjusting to imported foods that are often already expired by the time they arrive on the island shared with Papua New Guinea, observers said. Complicating matters, many Papuans avoid the province’s few medical clinics because they do not think they need treatment, while some avoid larger communities for fear of coming into contact with Indonesia’s military, which has been blamed for human rights abuses.
Natalius Pigai, a former senior official at Indonesia’s government-backed National Human Rights Commission, warned that the future of Papua and its people was at stake. “To stop (crises) from happening again in the future, we need to stop Papua’s isolation,” he said. While some new plantations offer hope for the local economy, most workers are not native Papuans, experts said.
Jakarta took control of western Papua after hundreds of years of Dutch colonial rule and a UN-backed self-determination referendum in 1969 that was regarded by many historians as a sham, leading to longsimmering tensions. When Widodo took office in 2014, he vowed to speed up infrastructure development and services, bolstering hopes for the region, observers said. “What the government is saying is what we think is important to do (for Papua) is in fact not being done,” said Richard Chauvel, a Papua expert at the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute.