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INDONESIA ACTS: Chickens at a Jakarta slaughterhouse. The government says it will relocate farms in residential areas, animal slaughterhouses as well as markets for poultry and other birds.
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NUSA DUA (BALI) - INDONESIA must deal with its thousands of backyard poultry farms if it hopes to eliminate the threat of the bird flu virus, a top United Nations official said yesterday.
Dr David Nabarro, the senior UN coordinator for human and avian influenza, warned there will be more human bird flu cases as long as the virus remained circulated among fowls.
'Indonesia must work hard to control the spread of the virus in poultry. It's not easy, as intense efforts may take several years,' said Dr Nabarro.
He was giving his assessment on the bird flu situation in Indonesia at a two-day, closed-door meeting in Bali between the Indonesian government and its key international partners.
Indonesia has cranked up its efforts to combat bird flu, a virus that has killed millions of birds and infected 106 people, including 85 who died.
Two of those who died last month were from Bali.
Infected fowls in thousands of backyard farms have been cited as the source of human infection over the past two years.
Many people who have died from the infection lived near the teeming capital, home also to more than 100,000 backyard chickens, ducks, doves and song birds.
Indonesia has admitted eliminating these small-scale backyard farms has been an uphill battle, even though Jakarta has officially banned the popular practice of keeping fowls in backyards.
Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono said the authorities were relocating farms in residential areas, animal slaughterhouses as well as markets for poultry and other birds.
'It's not easy to get people to move their farms elsewhere,' he said.
Still, officials said they have made some progress in raising public awareness on the dangers of living close to fowls.
Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie, who was at the Bali meeting, said that a year ago he had encountered resistance to the government's efforts to cull thousands of birds following an outbreak.
'I remember some time ago, villagers in one province approached me brandishing knives when officials in my entourage told them their fowls have to be killed,' he said.
Today, he said, people were more willing to have their bird culled when there was an outbreak.
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