January 26, 2007

Indonesia urges greater efforts against bird flu

Indonesia's president called for greater efforts to fight bird flu, saying Thursday (Jan 25) that owners of backyard chickens in the nation worst hit by the virus must be prepared to give them up for slaughter.

"We have to stop this disease before it is capable of transmitting (easily) from human to human," Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told reporters. "We have to prevent a pandemic."

The vast island nation has been criticised for failing to crack down on the virus when it first appeared in poultry stocks in 2003.

Yudhoyono said he supported a planned cull of backyard chickens in the capital, Jakarta.

"We need the cooperation of the people, especially those who keep fowl," he said. "We have no choice, I repeat we have no choice, to cull those birds in areas where there are infections reported."

There are estimated to be around 350 million backyard chickens throughout Indonesia, many of which are kept outside houses in the capital and surrounding towns.