Limited response to bird flu derided by veterinarians

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Surabaya

Although the President has instructed a selective cull of all chickens infected by bird flu, veterinarians here maintained that only a mass cull of all chickens would be effective in fending off an uncontrollable outbreak of bird flu in the country.

The belated decision issued on Wednesday by President Megawati Soekarnoputri was a sigh of relief for the Jakarta office of the World Health Organization (WHO).

However, deputy dean of the Bogor Institute of Agriculture's School of Veterinary Studies, Wayan Teguh Wibawan, said a mass cull would be the most effective measure, despite predicted losses from destroying the country's population of 135 million chickens.

Other veterinarians have raised similar views.

The government, Wayan added, "should make a guideline to handle the outbreak of the bird flu and build inter-department coordination for this purpose."

The government has stopped well short of destroying all chickens, citing inadequate funds. Minister of Agriculture Bungaran Saragih has requested Rp 212 billion (US$24.9 million) in emergency funds to finance the limited operation. The Asian Development Bank has allocated a total of $800,000 for countries affected by bird flu in the region (not for each country as reported earlier).

Agence-France Presse quoted the WHO technical officer in Jakarta, Steven Bjorge, as saying that a partial cull on farms where infected chickens were found would be ineffective.

The WHO recommends that all birds within a radius of three kilometers of any outbreak should be destroyed to prevent further spread of the disease to healthy chickens.

While Indonesia has yet to report any confirmed case of bird flu in humans as in neighboring countries, WHO authorities fear the possibility of the virus mutating into one that spreads among defenseless humans.

A team from the Ministry of Health has taken random blood samples from 100 people who work with live poultry, particularly those with symptoms of influenza.

"The results will come out in two or three days," Azimal of the 42-member team said. The team deployed to 10 provinces is the same group previously tasked with making preparations to deal with an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

Director for the development of animal husbandry, Tata Trisatyaputri, said culling would only be carried out in regions where infections were new and only in isolated areas.

She added that the government would only provide vaccinations. She claimed that mass culling would cause widespread social unrest.

Meanwhile, chairman of the East Java Poultry Business Association (PPUI), Paul Iskandar, agreed with the government's move not to conduct a mass cull.

"Healthy chickens should be vaccinated, while dead or infected chickens should be burned to prevent further spread of the disease," Paul said.

He said currently the East Java Animal Husbandry office has examined poultry farms in Pandaan, Pasuruan, Blitar and other areas in East Java. However, the office has not announced the number of infected chickens that would be killed.

Paul urged the government to issue certificates to disease- free poultry farms. These were crucial so people would know which chickens were safe to eat, he said.

On Friday evening, an official said the much-awaited serum to test the avian influenza virus here was expected to arrive from England within hours.

"The serum will be used to find out the subtypes of avian flu we have here," head of the veterinary laboratory of the Minister of Agriculture, Darminto said.

Director of the veterinary community health of the Minister of Agriculture, Bachtiar Moerad, said the test would be more to find out the possibility of other subtypes or variants of the virus here, as well as the deadly H5N1, which affects humans.

The testing will begin in a laboratory in Gunung Sindur, Bogor, West Java, on Saturday morning.