Indonesia - Bird flu fears: Flap over pet market move

Despite lingering fears about the spread of bird flu in the country with the world's highest number of fatalities from the deadly avian influenza virus, Indonesia's largest pet market has survived several attempts to relocate it.

Located in East Jakarta, Pasar Pramuka is one of the 23 pet markets in Jakarta that sell birds. It boasts no fewer than 152 stores selling anything from various pigeon breeds and ducks to ornamental chickens.

The market, which is popular with many Jakarta shoppers, sits just 5m from the densely populated Pal Meriam residential area - a clear challenge to municipal laws that ban poultry from being reared within 25m of residential areas.

While the laws specifically refer to farmed poultry and slaughterhouses, it is clear that pet birds would pose similar risks of spreading bird flu to humans.

But the people living near Pasar Pramuka are not worried.

"The pet market has been around for 30 years. We haven't had anyone here catching bird flu," Evaldi, 46, who lives about 20m from the market, said as his six-year-old son Razaq Gumanti, played with his pet bird.

His neighbour Damiri, too, told The Straits Times: "They have been keeping Pasar Pramuka market very clean, probably the cleanest market in the country. As long as they keep up with that hygiene work, we should not be worried."

It is the kind of response that frustrates Ipih Ruyani, Jakarta's top bureaucrat overseeing the culling of sick poultry and checking on whether poultry handlers keep to the rules. "Their typical argument is: We have been living with live poultry for years. If there were bird flu, we would have caught it a long time ago," she said, sighing.

Jakarta's municipal government has been trying to move Pasar Pramuka for the past four years but has been facing delays from a combination of protests from stallholders and the public, as well as slow bureaucracy.

The first attempt was made in 2007, the year 37 people died from bird flu in Indonesia. The country accounts for almost half of human bird flu fatalities, and saw 45 people die in 2006.

The relocation plan was raised again in 2009, with the authorities eyeing Cibubur district, just outside East Jakarta, as the strongest option. Again, however, it failed to materialise: The municipal government never finished the studies required before choosing the exact spot of land to be used in the area.

But there is now a new urgency to make another attempt to relocate Pasar Pramuka: This month, a five-year-old girl became the country's second bird flu fatality. With January hardly over, there are fears that this year's fatalities could equal or even surpass last year's 10.

In recent weeks, the government has been stepping up its checks, clamping down on uncaged poultry in the streets and pet birds that have not been certified as free of the flu virus. Plans are also being made to relocate another major pet market in the capital's Barito area.

The challenge is made harder by ad-hoc roadside stalls set up by traders to showcase pet animals ranging from chicken and fish to monkeys in the Janitegara area, and a common habit of rearing poultry for food in homes - despite a ban on such practices.

Still, the municipal authorities are determined to make yet another attempt to move Pasar Pramuka. This month, the officials put the relocation of the pet market at the top of their agenda.

But Ipih acknowledged that moving a market that has been there for more than 30 years is no easy task.

The officials will have to keep warning both residents and stallholders about how life-threatening the bird flu virus is, and the urgent need for prevention.

At the same time, they will need to convince stallholders of the need to move, to avoid triggering strong resistance that could lead to more protests.

"It takes a delicate and long process, but we are going to relocate Pasar Pramuka as soon as possible," a determined Ipih said. "We have earmarked a 2ha piece of land in Cibubur."

She said that the majority of the traders at Pasar Pramuka and nearby residents now support the relocation - apart from what she called the "stubborn citizen category".

That would be people such as Abu Busono, 45, who sells Sulawesi ornamental chickens as well as a wide range of pet birds at the mar-ket and is strongly opposed to any relocation.

"We don't need to move. There is no such thing as bird flu, no such thing as poultry to human transmission. Poultry's disease stays with the poultry, and so does human disease," he said.

Still, Ipih is confident that Indonesia will not see any possibility of a repeat of 2006, when it saw its worst bird flu fatalities. Thanks to increased public awareness about the disease, she said, bird flu cases have dropped.

In 2006, the authorities had to cull 300,000 poultry around Jakarta's streets. By 2008, this had fallen to 36,000, and last year, just 13,000.

She said: "If you go to any neighbourhood streets today, you see far fewer chickens around. We can find loose chickens nowadays only in the really, really poor areas of the capital, like those who live close to the river banks."

Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja

The Straits Times

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