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