November 14, 2005

Indonesia will only do selective poultry cull against bird flu

Indonesia will choose to do selective poultry culling, instead of mass culling, to prevent bird flu from spreading, said Indonesian Agricultural Minister Anton Apriantono said on Nov 11.

Apriantono argued that mass cull would not guarantee a total eradication of the disease in affected areas as wild birds could still spread the virus to another area, and might even create social problems instead.

Indonesia, he also reminded, is a big country that had too many small farms spread across many regions.

Earlier, due to financial problems, Indonesia had conducted only a selective cull to prevent the disease spread, and the WHO had questioned the decision.