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Indonesia defends bird flu fight
The Indonesian government has vowed to bolster efforts to bring bird
flu under control, amidst mounting criticism that the country is not doing
enough to contain the spread of the deadly H5N1 virus in poultry. Indonesia has
the world's highest number of fatalities from the disease, reportedly standing
at 45 deaths.
Indonesia's Coordinating Minister for the People's
Welfare Aburizal Bakrie has defended the measures the country has implemented,
adding Jakarta had not yet received any of the US$1.9 billion in aid pledged by
foreign nations to help fight
bird
flu.
"We have already carried out culls to stop the spread of bird flu in the
country," he said, dismissing criticism that authorities are hesitant to
implement unpopular measures or commit to providing the necessary compensation
for culled birds.
Indonesia's agriculture minister Anton Apriyantono and health minister Siti
Fadilah Supari, along with dozens of officials of the National Commission on
Bird Flu, attended a meeting at Aburizal's office to evaluate the latest
situation.
Anton said that since 2004, when Indonesia first detected the H5N1 virus in
poultry, the government slaughtered about 29 million birds across the
archipelago. About 5.9 million of those were from backyard farms, which local
and international health experts have said are the primary source of infection
in humans.
He said the government spent 60 billion rupiah (more than US$6 million) in
compensation for owners of the birds culled from household coops, but did not
elaborate on the amounts of compensation received by poultry farms.
"However, there's no guarantee that culling will totally stop the spread of
the virus, but it definitely will reduce cases of infection in both poultry and
humans," he said, referring to the reappearance of H5N1 infection in humans in
Thailand last week despite the cull of millions of chickens six months
ago.
Editor WorldPoultry
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