No money for major cull: Govt

Abdul Khalik and Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Only 31 pigs and 40 ducks infected with bird flu were slaughtered on Sunday as the government reacted cautiously to the threat of the flu spreading among humans.

The government had promised to conduct a mass cull of poultry and pigs within a radius of three kilometers from a place where an outbreak has occurred, in line with World Health Organization recommendations.

Minister of Agriculture Anton Apriyantono, who witnessed the cull at a pig farm in Legok, Tangerang, Banten province, said the government lacked the money to live up to its promise, although he was aware of the possibility of a major outbreak.

The minor cull came after WHO officials warned that the virus could mutate and mix with human influenza, creating a deadly, easily transmittable, pandemic strain that could kill millions of people, following the death of humans from the H5N1 avian influenza strain in Indonesia.

It remains unknown, however, if three Tangerang residents -- Iwan Siswara Rafei, an official at the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK), and his two daughters -- had contracted the virus from pigs.

Anton said the government was conducting surveillance in many areas across the country.

"We found that only a few pigs and ducks have been infected with bird flu virus on two farms in Legok and Panongan. We only culled the infected animals as we don't have the money to carry out a mass cull," he said.

Anton said the government would need Rp 800 billion (US$84.2 million) to carry out a mass cull, while his ministry, for instance, had only Rp 104 billion in contingency funds.

The lack of money has resulted in the government only culling visibly ill poultry, with the remainder being vaccinated.

Anton said that the ministry had allocated half of the money in its contingency fund to paying for the vaccination program and to compensate farmers whose animals have been culled.

"We will, however, continue to closely monitor the situation in the affected areas and conduct surveillance tests for a month to see if more animals are infected. If we find more infected animals, we will cull them. We have also declared this an epidemic-affected zone," he said.

The government has so far provided 140.2 million doses of vaccine.

The deputy chairman of the House budget committee, Bursah Zarnubi, said his committee had not received any request from the agriculture ministry for emergency funds to tackle bird flu, but asserted that the committee would approve any such request when it reconvened on Monday to discuss the 2006 state budget and emergency allocation requests.

On Saturday, Minister of Health Siti Fadillah Supari said it was still not known how the three Tangerang people who died of avian influenza had contracted the deadly virus.

"There is a missing link. We still can't say if the virus came from chickens or pigs. Our investigators from the ministry and those from WHO are still trying to trace it," Siti said.

Siti reiterated that the deadly H5N1 strain of the flu had not mutated and could not be transmitted between humans.

Determining how the victims contracted the virus would allow health workers to prevent it from spreading to other people.

Siti said that the government had designated 44 hospitals across the country to treat bird flu patients and act as response centers to any further outbreaks. The public could report cases of the disease by calling (021) 4257125 during office hours, and 0819189720 or 0812103886 outside of office hours.

She said the government would not charge patients who came down with the virus as long as they sought treatment at one of the designated hospitals.