Indonesia holds major bird flu exercise in Bali

By Lenita Sulthani

JEMBRANA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Indonesia, which has the world's highest human death toll from bird flu, launched an exercise on the resort island of Bali on Friday to test its ability to deal with a pandemic triggered by the virus.

The three-day simulation, the country's biggest ever test, involves about 1,000 people, including police and military personnel, some wearing white protective suits and going from door to door in the test village in the west of the island.

"This is to show to the world that we are ready, that we are prepared," said Nyoman Kandun, director-general of communicable disease control at the health ministry.

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said last month that Indonesian efforts had done little to control bird flu and it needed more help in controlling the virus.

Under the exercise, poultry was culled and buried in infected areas and the village is due to be quarantined on Saturday.

Indonesia has suffered 107 human deaths from bird flu, out of 132 confirmed cases, compared with 240 deaths globally, according to data from the World Health Organisation.

Contact with sick fowl is the most common way of contracting the H5N1 virus, which is endemic in bird populations in most of Indonesia.

Experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that people can easily catch and pass to one another, in which case infections would soar, causing a pandemic that could kill millions of people worldwide.