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Funds for Handling Bird Flu in 2006 Reach Rp200 Billion
Friday, 11 November, 2005 | 22:49 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:The Indonesian government has placed the funds for handling the bird flu, amounting to Rp200 billion, on its budget next year. Indonesian Minister of Agriculture Anton Apriyantono said that the funds were aimed at conducting bio-security, monitoring and the cleansing of the farms.

“We will also recruit veterinarians and establish cooperation with universities,” stated Apriyantono to reporters at the State Palace, Jakarta, on Friday (11/11).

Apriyantono said that these funds were much larger than the aid offered by the US, Japanese and Dutch governments, that totaled US$10 million (around Rp100 billion). “We will still discuss the form of the aid,” Apriyantono stated.

Meanwhile, the offer from the World Bank, Apriyantono said, was yet to be stated in numbers. The World Bank was still trying to collect funds from the donor countries.

According to Apriyantono, the amount of the funds indicates that Western countries see that handling of the bird flu cannot be done only by the mass annihilation of chickens and other types of birds. The Indonesian Government has spent up to US$80 million (around Rp800 billions) in destroying the fowls in Tangerang.

The mass culling in Thailand, Apriyantono said, indicated that this measure was not effective. The virus reappeared in the areas where the fowls have been destroyed. “The obliteration of the fowls will not automatically destroy the virus,” he stated.

This has been carried out in the Netherlands. However, the farming system in the Netherlands is more organized and modern compared to Indonesia. Moreover, the number of fowls destroyed in the Netherlands is only 30 million or one-third of the total population. In Indonesia, Apriyantono said, the fowls were distributed in small farms.(Budiriza-Tempo News Room)