September 28, 2005

Indonesia faces problems in fight against bird flu

Indonesia faced problems in its fight against bird flu due to insufficient funds, a shortage of veterinary doctors, and incomplete data on flocks of commercial breeders, the government said.

According to Agus Heryanto, deputy director of animal surveillance in the agriculture ministry, the country has not yet started mass culling of infected birds because the recent outbreaks spread too quickly for the government to react.

Meanwhile, there was not enough information from commercial breeders in the private sector and farmers did not cooperate with authorities, Heryanto added.

Since late 2003, the virus has spread to 22 of Indonesia's 33 provinces.

While small domestic poultry farmers were the worst hit, integrated farms, commercial breeders and semi-commercial breeders that made up the rest of the industry had adequate bio-safety measures in place, Heryanto said.

Meanwhile, funding against bird flu was another concern. Although the government approved Rp86 billion for anti-bird flu measures last year, this was less than half the amount agriculture officials had sought, he said.

He also expressed his concern that the Rp134 billion approved this year was still not enough to contain bird flu, and international funding aid was most likely needed.

The government also faced the problem of convincing farmers to participate in a cull programme. Heryanto said this was because the government compensated about Rp3,000 a bird, compared with the commercial value of each bird at Rp12,000.

Heryanto said Indonesia's small farms sector comprised of about 30 million households, including an estimated 340 million village chickens and ducks. The serious shortage of veterinarians only complicated the situation.