Students ready for bird flu fight

Students ready for bird flu fight

BOGOR: At least 400 Indonesian university students are ready to go house-to-house to check for bird flu in chickens that people keep in their backyards, university officials said on Saturday.

The students from four universities in Java and Bali are a part of up to 1,000 veterinary students and other volunteers that the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization says will take part in a "military-like" door-to-door campaign.

They will look for infected chickens in the densely populated island of Java, which is the source of most of Indonesia's human bird flu infections so far, and neighboring Sulawesi and Sumatra islands, from Nov. 7 to mid-December.

"We have been preparing our students since Sep. 27," said Charles Ranggatabbu of the Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University (UGM).

He expressed doubts over the effectiveness of vaccinating healthy chickens found among infected ones.

"Ideally, if found infected, the backyard chickens should be stamped out instead of selective culling," Charles said. -- AP