As FAO stated before, birds usually die within 24 hours of contracting bird flu and dead birds don’t fly, so migratory birds are not seen to be a problem. Despite wild birds becoming more and more under scrutiny, the FAO position statement stands that wild birds have not shown to be significant reservoirs of the H5N1 virus. In fact in the US, only some ducks have been found to have low pathogenic avian influenza and so far the scare that highly pathogenic avian influenza would come north from Mexico or south from Alaska and Canada simply is not panning out.
The Banning of Backyard Poultry and the Controversy
Hong Kong banned backyard poultry last year. In an article in Medical News, Carrie Yao, Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, states that backyard poultry is more susceptible to bird flu.
In Indonesia bird flu in poultry is endemic in more than 15 provinces of the country. Almost everyone has poultry in his or her yard, and not just out back. Emmy Fitri wrote an article about the banning of backyard poultry. She surely probably represents others in Indonesia who feel that officials should have backed up their threat to ban backyard poultry in October, 2006. And she has a point. It appears that most people have contracted bird flu in Indonesia from birds that have died around their house, chickens they killed and plucked because they were already sick. Children have contracted bird flu simply from playing in the same neighborhood where chickens had been dropping dead, although it seems likely that children also had direct contact with sick birds. Deaths of children and adults alike are preventable and the people of Indonesia should be outraged.
But I wonder if it would really be possible to prohibit people from keeping birds in their yard. The Indonesian government likely takes into consideration that poultry in Indonesia is not just a food and a source of cash flow, but also a source of entertainment and pride. Fighting cocks and beautiful birds are as valuable to people as racehorses and Arabian show horses in western countries. Maybe this is why backyard poultry has not actually been banned, or maybe they feel that backyard birds are not the root problem of avian flu.
Are backyard chickens more susceptible to bird flu?
More people have direct contact with a backyard chicken than a caged chicken, but a chicken infected on a factory farm could infect many more chickens and have a broader impact on world poultry markets with larger implications for human health. But is a backyard chicken more likely to catch the flu? Since wild birds are not likely to play a large role in the spread of the flu, and backyard chickens do not tend to live in crowded conditions conducive to spreading disease, it is not likely that backyard chickens are more likely to catch avian flu than a commercially raised chicken.
So Would Banning Backyard Chickens Reduce Bird Flu in Indonesia?
As Emmy Fitri of the Jakarta Post suggested, poultry could at least be limited to a confined area, such as a chicken run. This way, so many people may not be exposed to a bird that may become diseased. But, upon investigation, the WHO almost always reports that victims of bird flu have had direct contact with a sick chicken, such as slaughtering or defeathering an infected bird. So, no, I don’t believe that reducing backyard flocks or confining them would make a big difference in halting bird flu infections in people as long as people have access to poultry.
Banning poultry from the city may help reduce deaths from slaughtering and defeathering in the city, but since bird flu is not easily transmitted from human to human, taking this measure only in the city makes little sense. What is lacking is education about bird flu. People need to continue to be warned that handling sick birds or birds dead from an illness is very risky.
As for confining birds, it may not be possible for an individual to spend the resources building a space for a few birds, and then, as a consequence of the caging, have to bring them food. Chickens who run free eat insects and plants, no one has to buy them chicken feed. FAO's Pro-Poor Livestock Policy Initiative (PPLPI) studied the keeping of poultry in Vietnam and concluded that finding another investment that offered a 700 per cent return like poultry for poor farmers, would be very difficult.
The problem is getting people educated about bird flu and providing incentives to cull infected birds. And so arises the issue of compensation. Some countries compensate farmers for poultry farmers lose due to government culling of sick chickens and those within a certain radius of the infection. And even lines of credit may be available for farmers to recover from lost production. And when we are talking about backyard flocks, many times the number of birds amounts to fewer than 20.
After proper education of local people, compensation and measures to conserve local breeds, culling would seem to be a sensible response to the massive outbreaks that are dogging the fourth most populous country in the world.
(See Sources.)