400 Indonesian Students Begin House-to-House Hunt for Bird Flu
BOGOR, Indonesia
At least 400 Indonesian university students are going house-to-house to check for bird flu in chickens that people keep in their backyards, said university officials last month.
The students, from four universities in Java and Bali, are among up to 1,000 veterinary students and other volunteers that the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization says are taking part in a “military-like” door-to-door campaign.
They are looking for infected chickens in the densely populated island of Java, which is the source of most of Indonesia’s human bird flu infections so far, as well as the neighboring Sulawesi and Sumatra islands. The campaign began on Nov. 7 and will run until mid-December.
“We have been preparing our students since Sep. 27,” says Dr. Charles Ranggatabbu of the Yogyakarta-based Gajah Mada University.
He expressed doubts over the effectiveness of vaccinating healthy chickens found among infected ones.
“Ideally, if found infected, the backyard chickens should be stamped out instead of selective culling,” Ranggatabbu says.
