Home
News
Only ten percent of chickens vaccinated against AI
The Indonesian government has vaccinated about 140
million chickens against bird flu - only ten percent of the 1.4 billion chickens
across the country, according to an official.
National Commission expert panel member Amin Soebandrio expressed his
concern that the low quality vaccine being used could actually create a new and
more dangerous strain of the virus.
"In the past, chickens would die if they had
bird
flu, but now they are still alive even if they have the virus," he
said.
He said that infected chickens roaming from place to place are very
dangerous, and expressed regret about the ad hoc approach to tackling the virus
in Indonesia.
"It is regrettable that bird flu vaccination was not followed up," he said.
He said public awareness of bio-security against bird flu was still low,
and also cited a lack of funds for the government's ineffective measures to
depopulate infected poultry.
"Many trucks carrying poultry were passing populated areas and clogged
roads while we don't know whether the poultry are infected with bird flu or
not," he said.
According to the
World Health Organisation bird flu has infected 258 people
worldwide since late 2003, killing 153. 56 of these deaths have been in
Indonesia.
Editor WorldPoultry
To comment, login here
Or register to be able to comment.