INTERVIEW - Limited Funds Hurt Indonesia's Bird Flu Battle
Date: 28-Sep-05
Country: MALAYSIA
Author: Barani Krishnan
Indonesia has not begun mass culls of infected birds because a recent outbreak of bird flu took authorities by surprise, Agus Heryanto, deputy director of animal surveillance in the agriculture ministry, said in an interview.
"We have not adopted the strategy of stamping out yet because when the bird flu outbreak happened in Indonesia recently, it spread too quickly for us to react," said Heryanto, who was in the Malaysian capital to address a conference on Asian livestock.
"There was no information from the private sector, where commercial breeders are, and farmers did not cooperate with the government," he added. "Also, the government needed to diagnose and react because it is still a new disease for us."
Bird flu has killed 66 people in four Asian countries since late 2003 and has been found in birds in Russia and Europe.
In Indonesia, the virus has spread to 22 of the country's 33 provinces since late 2003. A 27-year-old woman suffering from bird flu died in a Jakarta hospital on Monday and a five-year-old girl who died last week was suspected of having carried the disease.
The small farmers of Indonesia's poultry industry were the worst hit, Heryanto said, and some culling of flocks had begun.
"After we knew how bad the situation was in the small farms sector, we had to decide the areas which needed de-population of birds and work out the compensation for the farmers."
The integrated farms, commercial breeders and semi-commercial breeders that constitute the rest of the industry had adequate biosafety measures in place, however, Heryanto said.
Another concern is funding, with need for international funds likely to grow. The Indonesian government approved 86 billion rupiah for the fight against bird flu last year but that was less than half the sum agriculture officials had sought, he said.
"This year, they have approved 134 billion rupiah," he said. "I can tell you this is not enough to contain the disease. We can't estimate at this juncture how much will be enough. We most likely will need international assistance for funds."
Ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional grouping meet in the Philippines on Wednesday to coordinate their countries' efforts to fight the bird flu virus.
Heryanto said farmers unhappy at what they considered poor compensation might keep their birds out of a cull programme.
"What the government is paying is about 3,000 rupiah per bird," Heryanto said. "The commercial value per bird is 12,000 rupiah. But this is all the government can afford. We anticipate a problem in convincing farmers to part with their birds."
About 30 million households make up the small farms sector, which includes about 340 million village chickens and ducks, he estimated. Likely delays in disbursing funds and a serious shortage of veterinarians complicated the picture, he added, but one bright spot was that there was little chance of the disease spreading to other countries, since Indonesia does not export poultry.
ASEAN is made up of Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines.
