Avian influenza has killed no less than 500,000 chickens in Greater Jakarta in the last six months but not all outbreaks have been reported to the health authority, local press reported Wednesday.
Many bird flu cases were not detected by the health authority because there was a shortage of field officers, reported English daily The Jakarta Post.
Bird flu was first reported in poultry in the capital in 2003.
The government, meanwhile, has insisted it complies with World Health Organization standards for handling bird flu outbreaks by vaccinating healthy poultry and culling infected chickens and birds within a one-km radius of affected farms.
Heru Setijanto, a veterinarian with the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, warned that the bird flu cases reported could be the tip of the iceberg.
"Chickens die everywhere. The problem is that the deaths are not always reported," he was quoted as saying.
Apart from attacking chickens, bird flu has infected more than 100 people across Indonesia, with casualties topping 82, the highest in the world.
Source: Xinhua
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