August 10, 2006

 

Indonesia hits back at critics of its anti-bird flu efforts

 

 

Indonesia, whose efforts to battle bird flu were much criticised, hit back at its critics Wednesday (Aug 9), saying that it had received virtually no international financial support despite pledges of cash.

 

Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie said even though Indonesia did not receive any financial aid, it had slaughtered millions of birds and allocated US$50 million to fight bird flu this year.

 

Bird flu has killed 44 Indonesians since July last year, resulting in Indonesia having the highest death toll from the virus in the world.

 

Bakroe said that since 2004, authorities have culled almost 29 million chickens, nearly a fifth of them belonging to backyard and small-scale farmers.

 

Up to a quarter of a billion birds have been vaccinated.

 

These efforts indicate that the government is serious about fighting bird flu, Bakrie said.

 

However, critics say Indonesia has not instituted widespread culls like Thailand and Vietnam did.

 

Even with widespread culling, Thailand has reported two more human deaths since late July.

 

At an international donors' conference earlier this year, Indonesia said international donors pledged one-ninth of the 900 million dollars the country requires to fight bird flu.

 

However, no money has been delivered so far, Bakrie said. 95 percent of the programmes so far have been sponsored by the Indonesian government, he said, with the rest coming from individual international organizations.

 

Indonesia has paid out US$6.6 million dollars) in compensation to farmers and would allocate US$50 million to combat bird flu this year, Bakrie continued.

 

Indonesia's chicken population is spread out in a vast archipelago of 17,000 islands making the bird flu situation difficult to monitor, Bakrie said.