# 1046
For many months the number of poultry deaths in Indonesia, often confirmed as being due to H5N1, has been so great that officials no longer bother to report them individually to the WHO or the OIE.
Local media often makes mention of bird die offs, or massive culling operations, but the international media has stopped covering the story. So today's report by Xinhua is a bit of a rarity.
In the greater Jakarta area alone, it is estimated that 500,000 chickens have died from the H5N1 virus in the last six months.
Jakarta warned of silent bird flu outbreak in poultry
2007-08-08 14:23:33
JAKARTA, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- 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.
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