May 1, 2006

 

Indonesians fear bird flu, not

 

 

While the poultry industry in India and Europe are languishing due to bird flu fears which sent prices tumbling in recent months, Indonesia, where more than a dozen people have died from the deadly disease, is still gorging on chicken with nary an eye to worries about a pandemic.

 

After two years of bird flu, Indonesians are now conditioned to accept the disease as part of daily living. The initial fears over the mysterious disease capable of killing millions have now faded in Indonesia as weekly deaths became routine.

 

Indonesians have long believed what researchers recently discovered, that bird flu is hard to catch, even for those working closely with birds.

 

From roadside stalls serving whole chickens to the lunch crowd to chicken sellers gutting chickens in the markets to KFC restaurants teeming with customers, Indonesians are buying and eating chicken as if bird flu is but a distant memory and not something threatening lives in their backyards. 

 

Indonesians are realising that most people are not at risk of contracting the virus, said Steven Bjorge of the World Health Organization's office in Jakarta.

 

Whether it is blind faith in the assurances of the chicken industry or nonchalance about catching the disease, sales of chicken have rebounded to a strong recovery after plummeting two years ago.

 

Sales of poultry have resumed normal levels in markets months and even weeks after newspapers reported about bird flu two years ago. Even KFC recovered from a dip in sales just one week after bird flu first appeared.

 

The disease struck flocks in two-thirds of the country's provinces in 2004, killing millions of birds. Government efforts to contain the outbreak have floundered, with authorities running out of money for a planned national poultry vaccination programme that would have begun in May.

 

More than 32 Indonesians have contracted the disease since the first human infection was confirmed last year, and two-thirds have died.  

 

However, bird flu no longer grace the headlines of newspapers in Indonesia, dwarfed by other maladies afflicting the archipelago of 16,000 islands such as the doubling of fuel prices, dengue fever, assorted floods, landslides and even volcanic eruption.

 

Most Indonesians, who grew up with chickens in their backyards, have become desensitized to poultry dropping dead from diseases, with some even thinking it was a ploy by the government to distract them from the strains of daily living.