- JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) --
Avian flu has resurfaced in parts of Indonesia, prompting officials to
launch a massive campaign to vaccinate chickens, the government announced
Wednesday.
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- Dr. Tri Satya Putri Naipospos, director of animal health
for the Ministry of Agriculture, said the government planned to distribute
as many as 300 million doses of vaccine to poultry farms after reports
that a few thousand chickens had died in the eastern part of Java island
in July.
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- "We can say there have been new cases in several
districts in East Java," Naipospos said. "By vaccinating the
chickens, we can reduce the mortality rates and reduce the spread of the
virus."
-
- Indonesia joins Vietnam, China and Thailand, which have
also seen a resurgence of bird flu in the past month.
-
- Earlier this year, the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu
swept through Asia, ravaging the poultry industry and killing 24 people
in Thailand and Vietnam. More than 100 million chickens and ducks across
the region were slaughtered, including upwards of 10 million in Indonesia.
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- During the outbreak in February, Jakarta came under heavy
criticism for failing to alert the public of the threat, and for being
slow to respond with a mass slaughter and other measures aimed at containing
it.
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- In Canada, some 17 million birds were slaughtered after
the disease hit the B.C. Fraser Valley poultry industry in February.
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- © The Canadian Press 2004 http://www.canada.com/health/story.html?id=6aff2226-cc66-4eb0-9a68-ee108ba8e97c
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