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  PlanetArk 7 Nov 05
Singapore's Bird Park Turns Chickens into Flu Police
Story by Fayen Wong

SINGAPORE - As Asian governments keep a lookout for new cases of bird flu, Singapore is deploying some unlikely "flu police" at the world's largest bird park: chickens.

Singapore's Jurong Bird Park has put 19 chickens, known as "sentinel chickens", in all its aviaries to help detect the presence of any infectious disease.

"These chickens are bred without any immunity. So they will be the first ones to fall ill if there is an outbreak of bird flu or other infectious diseases at the park," Wong Hon Mun, executive director of Jurong Bird Park, told Reuters.

He said the chickens are bred from birds that have never been vaccinated against any disease and so act as a first line of defence against bird flu or any other illness brought in by wild birds. Since last year the park has started vaccinating all other birds and giving flu jabs to its staff. It has also introduced foot baths and disinfecting floor mats to reduce the risk of spreading the virus.

Wong said the park has done scenario planning with the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority, and added that if any of its captive birds were found to have contracted bird flu, the park would have to cull all the birds in the particular aviary.

"They will have to be put down, whether it's the toucans or birds of paradise," Wong said. "It is a very tough decision. But the thinking is that it has to be done because we are talking about a possible transmission to humans."

The park has more than 9,000 birds of 600 species including such endangered ones as the Toco Toucans, Caribbean Flamingos and Dalmatian Pelicans. Vets check the birds daily.

The park -- the world's largest in terms of number of birds and second largest in terms of land area after Germany's Vogelpark Walsrode -- would temporarily shut down if there was an outbreak.

Despite growing fears about bird flu, Wong said visitor arrivals had not dipped. "In fact, the number of visitors has increased by about 20 percent this year compared to last year," he said.

Although Singapore is currently free of bird flu, there are increasing concerns that imported birds could carry the deadly virus onto its shores.

Britain said last month that a parrot that died in quarantine tested positive for H5N1. The authorities believe the parrot was infected in Taiwan.

Wong said the park has stopped all bird imports and exports since March last year and any new bird imports would have to fulfil government regulations.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu, transmitted through human contact with birds, has killed 62 people in Asia and infected 122 since late 2003. Experts fear that H5N1 will mutate to allow it to pass easily from person to person. If it does so, it could cause a catastrophic pandemic, killing tens of millions, because humans lack immunity to it.
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Related articles on Global issues: Bird Flu
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