UN praises RI's $10m effort to combat bird flu<\/p>\n
Associated Press, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Indonesia has allocated US$10 million to finance a culling and
\nvaccination campaign that should effectively contain its latest
\noutbreak of the deadly bird flu virus, a U.N. agency said Friday.<\/p>\n
Bird flu resurfaced last week on Indonesia's heavily populated
\nJava island, killing 350 chickens. Tests showed the birds had the
\nlethal H5N1 strain of the virus, which has killed 31 people this
\nyear in Thailand and Vietnam.<\/p>\n
Authorities have urged farmers to vaccinate their flocks, and
\nare also planning to step up surveillance of affected areas,
\ncontain live birds and animal waste, and launch a public
\neducation campaign, said the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture
\nOrganization, or FAO.<\/p>\n
Carolyn Benigno, an FAO official who visited Indonesia earlier
\nthis week, said Indonesian authorities will also conduct more
\nculls and vaccinations under a $10 million program.<\/p>\n
"The plan is very comprehensive and it covers all the issues
\nof avian flu," Benigno said told The Associated Press by
\ntelephone from Bangkok.<\/p>\n
"They are in the control of the situation," she added. "They
\nrealize they have to move quickly."<\/p>\n
During an earlier outbreak in February, Jakarta came under
\nheavy criticism for failing to alert the public of the threat of
\nbird flu, and for being slow to respond with measures aimed at
\ncontaining it.<\/p>\n
The government eventually ordered a mass cull during that
\noutbreak, but it isn't known how many birds were slaughtered or
\nhow many died from the disease. No people in Indonesia are
\nreported to have contracted the virus.<\/p>\n
A second outbreak in July prompted officials to launch a
\nmassive campaign to vaccinate chickens.<\/p>\n
Officials from Indonesia's Agriculture Ministry said the
\nrecent string of cases was isolated and that the overall number
\nof bird flu cases was decreasing. The latest outbreak coincided
\nwith a second round of vaccinations across the country.<\/p>\n
The disease spread through a wide swath of Asia in the first
\nfew months of this year, killing or prompting the cull of more
\nthan 100 million chickens and other farm birds.<\/p>\n
Another wave of outbreaks since July has struck countries
\nincluding Thailand, Vietnam, China, Malaysia and Indonesia.<\/p>",
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