# 337
Not surprisingly, the ambitious plan of the central Indonesian government to enforce the removal of backyard and residential poultry is finding resistance among residents and regional politicians alike.
After a meeting Thursday morning to discuss bird flu prevention measures, Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari told reporters that, "step by step, the ban on non-commercial poultry farms in residential areas will be applied across the country."
Today, the government of the Central Javan Province announced that they would not be following the mandate issued by Jakarta, to eradicate backyard fowl. The Governor cited economic hardships that such a policy would entail, and stated that vaccines, and penning up poultry would be mandated instead. This report, posted on the Wiki by Influentia2, comes from Suara Merdeka Cybernews.
The Provincial Government will not eradicate the Poultry in Pemukiman [The Settlement]
Semarang, CyberNews.
The government of the Central Javan Province did not take the policy of the extermination of the poultry in dearah the settlement like the Special Capital District of Jakarta, pascapenetapan the government of the centre to 9 risky provinces high towards the spreading of bird flu or avian influenza.
"Saya had not given the order to eradicate the poultry.
I could be still acting wise and wise against the people, said Governor H Mardiyanto in gaps tasyakuran welcomed 1 Muharram 1428 H in Governor's Office Street the Semarang Hero.
Like that was reported, pemetapan the government to the Banten province, the Special Capital District of Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, East Java, North Sumatra, West Sumatra, South Sulawesi, and Lampung as the high risk territory against jangkitan AI was at once followed by the policy of the Special Capital District Provincial Government banned the maintenance of the commercial poultry (the scale of the household) in the settlement environment.
Central Java that entered the category like the Special Capital District of Jakarta it was confirmed will not take the policy like that was carried out in the capital.
According to the Governor, spread him came back the case of bird flu must indeed get serious attention.
His side realised that the community's situation at this time still has not improved economically, so, the policy of eradicating all the poultry in the domestic environment not the exact step, even increasingly will squeeze the community.
So, he will not copy the Special Capital District of Jakarta government action in the case spread him came back this AI case.
There are an estimated 350 million backyard chickens in Indonesia. The logistics of trying to eradicate, in a short period time, tens of millions of fowl will be daunting. The slaughtering and disposing of potentially infected carcasses will entail risk of further exposure to humans. And the immediate and ongoing economic hardship this will create amongst the poor will be significant.
The central government is caught in a no-win situation here.
They risk an expansion of the virus, additional human infections, and severe economic repercussions if they fail to take swift and deliberate action. But they also risk alienating a good many of their citizens, and increasing civil disobedience, by attempting to enforce a wide-ranging ban on backyard poultry. It is likely many people will try to hide their livestock or circumvent the law. Previous attempts to curtail the residential raising of poultry have failed due to these problems.
And the potential of exposing residents to the virus during a massive culling operation cannot be dismissed lightly.
Penning poultry, and the use of vaccinations may be of some use in controlling the virus, but many scientists worry that the vaccine simply keeps the chickens from dying, and that they can harbor the virus and pass it on. This policy also assumes that vaccines will be available in sufficient quantity, and are actually used.
A big assumption.
Indonesian livestock is reportedly rife with the H5N1 virus, and with 245 million people living in close proximity to hundreds of millions of fowl; the potential for more B2H (bird to human) transmission of the virus remains high. With each new human infection, we have another opportunity for a mutation that could conceivably start a pandemic.
While the success or failure of a culling operation half a world away may seem unimportant to most of us here in the west, this is a major front in the battle against the bird flu virus. We're only 3 days into this mandated ban, and already there appear to be cracks in the veneer.
A failure to control the outbreaks in Indonesia has the potential to affect everyone in the world.
