Govt plans a mass cull

Govt plans a mass cull

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government is to do mass cull to control the spread of the
deadly bird flu virus and has proposed that the House of
Representatives set aside Rp 82.5 billion (US$8.42 million) to
finance the measures as well as to compensate farmers.

"We are going to do a mass cull within a radius of three
kilometers from where we find infections, and we'll do tests on
animals within a 20 km radius," Minister of Agriculture Anton
Apriyantono was quoted as saying by Bloomberg.

In the past, the government has opted to cull only visibly ill
poultry and vaccinated the remainder due to limited funds.

However, recent bird flu-related deaths have raised the
government's concerns over the economic and health impacts of the
disease.

"We found pigs infected with bird flu in Tangerang in February
and April," Anton said. The government would provide cows to
affected farmers to replace the pigs, he added.

The government proposed to the House on Thursday to set aside
Rp 82.5 billion from the Revised 2005 State Budget.

"We don't have enough funds to cover the operational costs to
prevent bird flu from spreading," said Anton, as quoted by Dow
Jones. His ministry has only Rp 52 billion in emergency funds.
The total funds would be used to compensate farmers, vaccinate
livestock and finance other operational costs, he added.

Anton said the government would cull 196 pigs on Sunday in
Tangerang, where the country's first human deaths from bird flu
were confirmed.

Indonesia received confirmation of its first bird flu deaths
after tests proved that 38-year-old Iwan Siswara Rafei and his
two young daughters died early this month from avian influenza,
Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said on Tuesday.

The government has isolated Tangerang, preventing animals from
being taken out of the area, Anton said.

The farmhouses in Legok, Tangerang, and a nearby area where
infected pigs were found a few months ago, are 15 km from where
the deceased lived, he said.

"We don't know if these are the source of the virus. We are
still investigating whether it came from poultry or pigs," Anton
told The Jakarta Post. "If we consider the bird flu virus to be
an airborne disease, then in theory people can only contract it
if they are within three to five km, not 15 km."

Minister of Trade Mari E. Pangestu reminded people that the
virus could not be contracted from consuming chicken and eggs.

"The health ministry has given an assurance that eating
chicken and eggs is safe as long it is cooked in 80 degree
Celsius heat for at least one minute," she said in a press
conference.

She quoted reports from the Poultry Market Information Center
(Pinsar) that if demand for chicken dropped by 20 percent, it
could cause 2.5 million farm workers to lose their jobs.

According to the trade ministry, the country's annual chicken
consumption stands at 40,000 tons, while monthly production
averaged between 3,600 and 3,700 tons.

In Cirebon, the regency administration has deployed 20
personnel, including veterinarians, around the clock to monitor
traffic of livestock in Losari, a small town on the border of
West Java and Central Java.

Losari livestock monitoring head Djumino said veterinarians
were taking blood samples from poultry and livestock. If there
were any suspicious results, he added, the livestock would be
quarantined before being culled.

In Medan, North Sumatra Governor T. Rizal Nurdin told regents
and mayors to intensify monitoring and reporting in anticipation
of bird flu cases.

The province's spokesman RE Nainggolan said the provincial
administration would also vaccinate poultry in bird flu-affected
areas. At present, 15,000 of 23 million quails in the province
have contracted the bird flu virus.

The deadly virus has killed hundreds of millions of birds
across Asia over the past two years. Humans have also contracted
the virus, which has killed 57 people across Asia, including the
three in Indonesia.