JAKARTA, 31 August 2004 - An unidentified disease is killing chickens in Indonesia's Central Java but an official said on Tuesday the symptoms shown were not the same as bird flu. "We're trying to identify the disease, but I don't think it is bird flu because the symptoms are different," Suwandi Azis, head of poultry for the Sleman regency, told Reuters. Indonesia, struggling with the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, has lost around 8.9 million chickens in 15 of its 32 provinces since the end of last year.
Suwandi declined to say how many chickens had died, but local newspapers have reported the toll is in the thousands. "We don't know yet, we need to gather more reports. But it's not many," Suwandi said. The total chicken population of Sleman regency is around 1.4 million, he said. The disease has hit at least five villages in Sleman regency since last week, quickly killing infected chickens. "The chicken's rectum turns red and it dies," said Suwandi.
New cases of bird flu have re-emerged in several provinces but the government insists the deadly strain, blamed for 27 human deaths in Asia this year, is under control. The H5N1 strain was first detected in Hong Kong in 1997. So far there have been no reports of bird flu infecting people in Indonesia.

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