Ministry of Agriculture and FAO Select Markets for Interventions to Control Avian Flu
Avian influenza continues to be a serious potential threat to global public health and Indonesia is no exception. Between 2003 and 2014, the country recorded the highest number of human avian influenza (H5N1 subtype) cases in the world, reaching 168 fatalities. The largest number was recorded in the Greater Jakarta area, suspected to have been caused by the exposure of humans to the huge number of live poultry entering the Jakarta trading and market network every day.
“We record up to one million live poultry entering the capital city on a daily basis,” said Arief Wicaksono, from the Directorate of Animal Health, Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), at the workshop to select markets for bird flu control interventions in Jakarta, on 26 April 2018.
This situation prompted the MoA, with the FAO Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) through the USAID Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT2) program, to target a small number of markets for improvement as model healthy poultry markets. The development of healthy poultry markets is expected to reduce the spread of avian ‘flu along the poultry value chain in Greater Jakarta in particular and in Indonesia in general.
During the workshop, attended by key stakeholders, criteria for determining appropriate markets to target were defined by MoA and FAO. Selection criteria included: that the market be a people’s market, be part of the Ministry of Health healthy markets program and certified as an Indonesian National Standard (SNI) market. Selected markets also had to fulfil minimum biosecurity requirements such as exclusion of live poultry from the market and only sell healthy and wholesome carcase poultry (ayam ASUH) sourced from slaughterhouses outside of the market.
Arief stated that this poultry market improvement project was carried out to support poultry market chain restructuring through capacity building of market staff, hygiene and sanitation improvement in poultry markets, and healthy poultry market socialization to consumers and poultry meat sellers. The program also addresses cleaning and disinfection improvements for poultry transport vehicles to prevent avian influenza virus traveling back along the market chain from contaminated markets to poultry farms.
“But we cannot complete this project alone. We need support from related institutions, especially similar healthy market programs of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Trade’s SNI market certification program,” he explained.
Like Arief, Suhartati of the Jakarta Food, Fisheries, and Agriculture Service also regretted the lack of harmonisation between ministries and other agencies on coordinating poultry market improvement programs. She thought that each ministry or agency has their own individual healthy market program, but, unfortunately, they are not synchronised with one another. “We really support this FAO program and hope that it will act as a bridge between similar programs,” she concluded.
MoA-FAO poultry market chain activities have been implemented in DKI Jakarta since 2009. In 2017, a new pilot project was implemented in Sukatani market, Depok city to strengthen capacity and provide cleaning and disinfection equipment of improve market hygiene and foster collaboration with key stakeholders such as the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Commerce. For 2018, similar activities are planned for implementation in at least three markets and two RPHU (slaughterhouses) in the Jakarta Greater area.
By the end of the discussion, the participants had proposed seven markets and three RPHUs from which three markets and two RPHU will be selected as MoA-FAO ECTAD pilot model markets. The selected markets will be informed by an official letter from the Ministry of Agriculture.