Agencies told to cooperate to combat bird flu

Mustaqim Adamrah ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Wed, 04/16/2008 12:31 PM  |  City

The city administration has ordered its agencies to enhance cooperation among themselves and with other institutions to combat bird flu in the capital.

City Secretary Muhayat said Tuesday the administration would also involve the military and the public in the fight against the virus.

"(Health) Minister (Siti Fadilah Supari) has asked us to immediately draw up action plans that will be carried out simultaneously by the appropriate institutions," he said at City Hall.

"The plans will include standard operating procedures for each institution."

He said while all institutions involved would have to arrange their procedures within a week, all attempts to curb bird flu in the field would carry on.

Critics have dismissed attempts to combat bird flu as ineffective, with agencies and institutions like the city-owned traditional market operator PD Pasar Jaya failing to synchronize their efforts.

Muhayat spoke to reporters after a meeting in the afternoon with a number of city officials, including those from the city health agency, the city husbandry, fishery and maritime agency and PD Pasar Jaya.

He said areas of responsibility were delegated to all institutions involved at the meeting.

"The meeting concluded that the provincial administration will be responsible, for example, for the relocation of poultry markets and slaughterhouses," he said.

"Meanwhile, all five municipalities will be responsible for inspecting poultry breeding in backyards."

The meeting was a follow-up to a similar meeting held recently at the Coordinating Ministry for People's Welfare and attended by officials from the capital and neighboring cities of Banten's Tangerang and West Java's Bekasi.

The Jakarta administration and the National Committee for Avian Influenza Control and Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (Komnas FPBI) are now planning to intensify the bird flu prevention and control program in the capital.

The administration and the committee are working on ways to restructure the poultry business, regularly clean poultry sections at markets, minimize transportation of poultry and enact stricter regulations on the live chicken trade, the head of veterinary health at the city husbandry, fishery and maritime agency, Adnan Ahmad, said recently.

In the future, poultry in the city will be kept and killed at one appointed slaughterhouse in each of the city's five municipalities, he said.

Currently there are 259 poultry shelters and around 1,000 slaughterhouses processing approximately 400,000 chickens each day for consumption by Jakarta residents.

It is necessary, he said, to localize poultry and separate them from residents to curtail the spread of bird flu.

In the past four years, bird flu has claimed 107 lives out of 132 cases throughout the archipelago.

The latest cases saw the deaths of a 15-year-old boy and 12-year-old girl in West Java on March 28.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.