Indonesia pledged yesterday a year-long fight against bird flu which will include military involvement in house-to-house checks and culls across the vast archipelago nation.
Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono said the government, which has been criticized for acting slowly against the deadly virus, would "intensively" fight it into next year, as a cull of nearly 500 birds took place in the capital.
"We will be continuously performing this until all areas are safe. The president has said that until 2006, for one year, we will intensively eradicate bird flu virus," he told reporters.
Indonesia has had more than one dozen suspected human bird flu deaths, but only seven have been confirmed by the World Health Organization. Four others have been confirmed as contracting the virus but are still alive.
Yesterday, in one of the first publicized cullings in the country, almost 500 infected chickens and pet birds were destroyed in a bonfire.
Fifteen officials and volunteers, some not wearing protective gloves or masks, dug a large hole behind a public tennis court in the Utan Kayu residential area and burned a total of 493 chickens and birds and their cages.
Scores of curious residents, including men and women cradling children, stood only a few meters away from the bonfire, also lacking masks amid the smouldering heat and smoke of the burned birds.
Parts of the year-long program will include a weekly scour of backyard as well as large-scale farms across Jakarta and its neighboring towns of Bogor, Depok and Tangerang to the south and east, the minister said.
"The important thing is surveillance. Should positively-infected birds be found, we will immediately cull them using this [burning] method," said Apriyantono.
Apriyantono urged civilians to be "willing to allow their sick or non-sick chickens and birds" to be culled by officials and said they would be compensated for culled birds at market prices.
Authorities have so far been reluctant to conduct mass culling to prevent the spread of the disease, citing economic reasons. The minister did not say how the compensation scheme would work for farmers.
"I hope people can whole-heartedly allow their chickens to be culled. Socialization and public awareness of the danger of the disease are the key to effectively fight this virus," he said.
Indonesia was accused of covering up initial outbreaks of bird flu and has been repeatedly warned that it must take quick action to stem the spread of the virus, with awareness of the disease outside the capital remaining low.
The deadly H5N1 strain has claimed more than 60 lives in Asia.
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