Dr Common Sense Pandu Riono holds officials to account

Indonesian epidemiologist using data to hold governmen­t’s feet to the fire in strife over virus ‘treatment’ developed by the military.

Holding the feet of authorities to the fire: Pandu Riono

For months, Pandu Riono has been Indonesia’s self-appointed spokesman for common sense, an epidemiologist holding the governmen­t’s feet to the fire over its handling of the pandemic.

He was among a group of researchers who first sounded the alarm in early March over the potential­ scale of the pandemic in Indonesia, and among the first to point out that the country’s official COVID-19 death toll excluded those who died with suspected but unconfirmed infection. (He estim­ates deaths are at least three times the official toll of 6500, though acknowledge­s many may have died with co-morbidities.)

Professor Pandu was a prominent advocate for a ban on the tradition­al Eid holiday home­coming, and has consistently pushed authorities to improve testing rates, which the Oxford University-based Our World in Data project­ has ranked 83rd out of 86 countries surveyed for per-capita testing.

“Forty-seven per cent of the country’s testing capacity is in Jakarta,” he told The Weekend Australian, while up to 60 per cent of all polymerase chain reaction tests in Indonesia are used to confirm whether an infected patient still carries the virus rather than diagnose new cases — a policy he says is a waste of scarce resources.

“If you die before your specimen has been analysed, it will not get tested. Those deaths will never be part of the official statistics.”

Even with such low testing, Indonesi­a has 149,408 confirmed cases.

The University of Indonesia professor, blooded in public health controversy by his early work on HIV/AIDS, has taken aim at various remedies suggested by offic­ials, ranging from the power of prayer to a virus-healing euca­lyptus necklace. Many of them he sums up succinctly as “stupidity”.

Authorities appeared to tolerate his outspokenness, because it was frequently accompanied by useful research and suggestions. His opinion is regularly sought by government and provincial administration­s — notably Jakarta and West Java, which have been among the most capable handlers of the pandemic — and he chairs a weekly expert meeting for the president’s chief of staff.

But the former World Health Organisation consultant kicked the hornet’s nest this week when he raised concerns about an alleged COVID-19 treatment developed by the military intelligence agency and Airlangga University.

Fearing the involvement of security­ forces would intimidate the country’s food and drug monitoring agency into fast-tracking approval and distribution of a drug treatment that had not been subjected to sufficiently rigorous clinical trials, he loudly protested.

“I was so angry when I heard about it,” he says. “The proposal has been revised five times since June. Then suddenly, on Monday they reported the results and the military said it would go to the FDA to make sure this is approved.”

The agency has since outlined shortcomings in the results, and said the treatment needed more rigorous randomised trials.

But the blowback for Professor Pandu was swift. On Wednesday, his Twitter account was hacked by intruders who posted photos and tweets designed to damage his reputation. Friends and col­leagues­ were added to a Whats­App group peddling similarly libellous allegations.

He admits to being “shaken” by the experience and says his Jakarta house, from where he works, is now under surveillance.

Amnesty International has condemned the cyber attack, which it says is part of a “wave of digital attacks against government critics during the time of COVID-19”.

But Professor Pandu insists it hasn’t silenced him.

“My family supports me. All my friends and students are behind me and say I must be strong.”

He says Indonesia’s pandemic response has been hobbled by a lack of reliable data because of its ongoing inability to test more widely and accurately — a ­problem stretching back to Feb­ruary, when the government was barely testing at all, even as the virus was spreading across Asia.

“When I was in Thailand in January, all the health personnel were being educated on how to avoid catching the virus.”

Back in Indonesia, however, health workers were being exposed to the disease with little information or resources to protect themselves from infection, he says.

Among the earliest virus deaths within a medical community that has suffered disproportionately was Professor Pandu’s brother-in-law, Djoko Judojoko.

The military surgeon began displaying acute COVID symptoms in early March, and later tested positive.

“They tried to send him to Jakarta’s Gatot Subroto military hospital, but at that time there were so many important people (being treated) they couldn’t properly care for him,” he said. “So many people should be alive today” if the government had handled the pandemic better, he added. “Doctors dying is just a consequence of a very high infection rate.”