Malaysia Veterinary Forum (Archive)

Dr. TanDY

Malaysia enlists police help in fight against bird flu

Date: 2 June 2006

Police in Malaysia have been enlisted to help prevent birds and eggs from Indonesia from being brought into the country.

Coastal Malaysian states have also been placed on alert following the deaths of seven members of one family from bird flu in Northern Sumatra in Indonesia, which faces onto peninsular Malaysia.

The Star newspaper reports Malaysia's veterinary services department has mobilised assistance from the police and customs department to prevent infected birds from reaching the country.

"We cannot allow the birds into the country there could be serious implications and great danger that a similar outbreak could occur here," said the veterinary department's director-general Mustapa Jalil.

He said all the states on peninsular Malaysia's west coast, which lies nearest to Sumatra, as well as Sabah and Sarawak on Borneo island, have been put on high alert to watch out for infected birds.

"Strict instructions have been issued that all birds from the country would be seized and destroyed immediately," he said, adding that anyone caught defying the order faced imprisonment.

Malaysia reported a series of bird flu outbreaks beginning in February when it appeared in free-range chickens in villages near the capital Kuala Lumpur, triggering the slaughter of thousands of chickens.

Since then, the country has suffered five other outbreaks of the virus among poultry in the northern states of Perak and Penan, but there have been no human victims.