No need to worry about bird flu: GAPMMI

No need to worry about bird flu: GAPMMI

Sari P. Setiogi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesians should not be overly worried over the outbreak of
the bird flu that has ravaged Asia's poultry industry and
reportedly caused 12 people to die of influenza.

"We are not importing chickens from Vietnam, South Korea or
Japan. Even our chicken imports are very small in number. We
import only frozen chickens from the United States and very few
from Thailand and Malaysia," the chairman of the Indonesian Food
and Beverages Association (GAPMMI), Thomas Dharmawan, told The
Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

In a region already alarmed by the return of SARS, there has
been growing concern about the rapid spread of bird flu in
Vietnam, South Korea and Japan.

With researchers saying the virus could be introduced by
migrating birds, Thomas -- who in the past ran a cattle and
poultry business -- said it was unlikely that chickens in
Indonesia would catch the virus because the distance from the
above three countries to here was too great for the birds to fly.

Separately, the director of community veterinary health of the
Ministry of Agriculture, Bachtiar Moerad, told the Post that in
1992 the ministry had issued a ban on imports of poultry meat and
its products from countries that the World Organization for
Animal Health (OIE) advised against.

"The ministerial decree is still valid to this day," said
Bachtiar.

But according to the OIE web site, the organization has not
put Vietnam, South Korea or Japan on its blacklist.