Special report: Global fight against bird flu

    JAKARTA, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- Authorities in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta plan to conduct door-to-door inspections Thursday to ensure that households farmers have completely culled their fowls after a two-week deadline ended Wednesday.

    "If we still find birds in residential areas, we will seize and cull the fowls right away," Governor Sutiyoso was quoted Thursday by English daily The Jakarta Post as saying.

    He called on residents not to hide their birds from the officials.

    The inspections are designed to enforce a newly-issued gubernatorial regulation on poultry restrictions following the bird flu outbreak that killed four people in Jakarta and the neighboring city of Tangerang this month alone.

    The regulation bans backyard poultry starting Feb. 1 and orders residents to consume, sell or slaughter their fowls before that date.

    It authorizes officials to seize and cull all fowls reared in residential areas without paying their owners compensation after the two-week period.

    The head of the Animal Husbandry and Fishery Agency, Edi Setiarso, said that so far more than 100,000 poultry infected with the bird flu virus in the city had been culled.

    The agency has issued 28,000 certificates for healthy birds as required in the regulation, which is about 80 percent of the total number of pet birds in the city.