Govt sounds alert on bird flu recurrence

Tony Hotland, Jakarta

The government has warned that the country's poultry industry is still vulnerable to avian influenza, even though no new indication of a reoccurrence of the disease has been spotted.

Minister of Agriculture Bungaran Saragih affirmed on Tuesday that as yet there were no new signs of the disease -- popularly known as bird flu -- but urged the country's poultry breeders to be cautious.

"There are no signs detected yet, but we must stay alert, especially when the wet season approaches ... the last outbreak also occurred during the wet season," he said.

Poultry scientists have said that the H5N1 strain, the most lethal strain of bird flu, mutates rapidly, particularly in cold weather.

Bungaran said that the government would maintain its current measures to prevent the disease from attacking the country again, such as by regular vaccination and a ban on poultry products from abroad.

The minister was responding to recent reports of a possible new outbreak of the disease in Vietnam and Thailand, worst hit during the outbreak earlier this year.

The two countries were the first areas where the bird flu epidemic was initially detected late last year, resulting in the death of at least 24 people and the culling of millions of chickens across southeast Asia.

No human victims were reported in Indonesia, but at least 4.7 million chickens were slaughtered to prevent the further spread of the disease.

Bungaran added that the government spent up to Rp 70 billion (US$7.77 million) on vaccine and public service announcements in the mass media.

The government previously promised to allocate around Rp 212 billion in vaccine and compensation for small farmers whose poultry had to be destroyed as part of a selective culling program.

"The poultry industry is still vulnerable because the virus can strike again. It will take a clear period of three years since the occurrence of the last case before we can announce to the public that we are completely free of the disease," Bungaran added.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the H5N1 strain has the potential to kill millions of people if it combined with a human influenza virus to create a new, highly contagious strain transmissible among humans.

Meanwhile, chairman of the Indonesian Poultry Breeders Association Anton J. Supit said that Thailand's fresh ban on poultry imports from Indonesia would not have a serious impact.

"We neither export nor import chickens to a significant degree. Almost all production is for domestic demand. Even if we did, it would be a very small percentage," he told The Jakarta Post.