Denpasar.
Quarantine officials in Bali have culled
hundreds of chickens infected with bird flu that were smuggled onto the island
from East Java, an official said on Tuesday.
Wahyu
Savitri, the executive head of the Gilimanuk quarantine office, said the
chickens were discovered hiding in the baggage hold of an inter-province bus
that had departed from East Java.
Rapid
tests conducted on some of the birds showed that they carried the H5N1 virus
that causes avian influenza.
“Unfortunately,
the owner of the birds was not arrested because he did not travel onboard the
bus,” Wahyu said.
He said
the smuggling of chickens into Bali was rife because the poultry could fetch
better prices on the island.
“Just
this year, there have already been three smuggling attempts foiled,” Wahyu
said, without providing details.
The
chickens found on the bus, he continued, were believed to have been intended
for sale at markets in Denpasar, the provincial capital.
Bird
flu has so far been detected nine districts and municipalities in Bali.
The
last case of suspected human infection was in Jembrana district last month. A
4-year-old girl, who made contact with a dead bird later confirmed to have been
infected with the bird flu virus, is still under observation and isolation at a
local hospital.
The
island’s latest human bird flu casualty was a 12-year-old boy, who was infected
in Badung district and died on Feb. 21.
Five
people have died on the island since the first human bird flu case was
discovered there in 2007. In 2011, 46 people were found to be infected in Bali.
Made
Arya Kencana
The
Jakarta Globe
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