February 2, 2004

Indonesia Suffers Massive Bird Flu Losses

Indonesia has suffered 7.7 trillion rupiah in losses from the outbreak of bird flu, the daily Bisnis Indonesia reports.

The disease, which was detected in October, has also caused 1.25 million people to lose their jobs, the daily quotes Indonesia's Agricultural Minister Bungaran Saragih as saying at a parliamentary hearing.

He said the government has discovered that 51 regencies in 10 provinces are victims of the outbreak, which has so far killed 4.7 million chickens.

"But, the number (of chickens that were killed) is insignificant and won't hurt the nationwide poultry population," Bungaran said.

Indonesia's poultry population is around 1.3 billion.

Indonesia Thursday ordered a mandatory mass culling of chickens in areas affected by bird flu, reversing its earlier insistence that a large-scale slaughter wasn't necessary.

The World Health Organization had criticized Indonesia's initial refusal to order the killings, and had said poultry culls were the best way to halt the rapid spread of avian flu.