Ignorance, economics hamper bird flu fight across the country

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 01/19/2007 3:26 PM

Nani Afrida and Nana Rukmana, The Jakarta Post, Aceh, Cirebon

Rusna, a 35-year-old resident of Lamseukee hamlet in Lamcot village, Aceh Besar regency, was not aware of the dangers posed by the H5N1 strain of bird flu.

When clusters of her chickens died she simply wrapped them in plastic bags and disposed of them. She did not think to either bury or burn the dead carcasses.

Nearby residents -- many of which have chickens in their backyards -- shared her ignorance of the threat posed by the virus,

""We've heard about bird flu but we don't understand it,"" said Farida, Rusna's neighbor. Ten of her chickens have died suddenly in the past three days.

No human bird flu deaths have yet been recorded in Aceh, although several suspects with similar symptoms have received hospital treatment in the province.

On Thursday, Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said the government planned to extend a ban on backyard poultry, which began in Jakarta, to eight other provinces in a bid to stop the spread of bird flu.

She said special zones should separate poultry from residential areas. This measure would eventually be implemented in all 33 provinces, she added.

The government's decision followed the deaths of four people this month, taking the number of human deaths in the country to 61, the world's highest.

A circular was also issued urging officials from nine affected provinces to begin monitoring poultry populations. Poultry owners would be given Rp 12,500 compensation for each culled chicken.

The government's move to cull poultry populations infected with bird flu, however, received a cold response from the Association of Indonesian Poultry Farmers, which labeled it an irresponsible act. The association said many traditional poultry farms may go out of business as a result.

""The mass culling policy shows the government does not want to take responsibility,"" the association's chairman M. Ali Abubakar said in Cirebon, West Java, on Thursday.

The policy, he said, showed the government was trying to shift responsibility over the spread of bird flu from itself to the people.

""The policy is unacceptable,"" Ali said.

The association has around 8,000 poultry farming members across the country.

The Yogyakarta Poultry Farmers Association, which also raised objections to mass culls Thursday, said the move did not solve the current problem but rather added to it.

The association's chairman Hari Wibowo told The Jakarta Post in Yogyakarta on Thursday that moves to fight the spread of bird flu should involve the health, animal husbandry and agriculture offices.

However, current efforts to deal with bird flu outbreaks were being conducted solely by the health office, he said. The poultry industry, which had been badly hit by the virus' spread, was not involved in the process, he said.

Meanwhile, around 220,000 backyard chickens in Medan, North Sumatra, may pose a risk for the spread of bird flu, the city's agriculture office head, Eka R. Yanti Daniel, said Thursday.

Last year, bird flu killed eight people from one family in Karo regency, North Sumatra.

""We have no positive human bird flu cases in Medan, but we still have to work to prevent the virus from spreading here,"" she said.

-- Apriadi Gunawan and Slamet Susanto contributed to the story respectively from Medan, North Sumatra, and Yogyakarta.

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