July 22, 2005

Indonesia to do mass culling in bird flu infected areas
 

The Indonesian government announced that it would cull all chickens and pigs in areas affected by bird flu outbreaks in the next three days, including North Sumatra province, Jambi province and Tanggerang city in Banten province.

Poultry in infected areas would be culled up to a radius of 15 kilometers.

The bird flu outbreak has affected 21 out of 30 Indonesian provinces, with 9.53 million chickens killed by the disease, according to the government.

While authorities have not found out how the three bird flu victims who died recently got infected, the government said blood samples of 315 people who had contact with the family tested negative.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has not ruled out the possibility that the bird flu deaths in Indonesia were caused by human-to-human transmission.