Avian Influenza, or bird flu, has led to the death of 9.53 million chickens in Indonesia since the first outbreak was reported in August 2003, an official from the Ministry of Agriculture said here on Tuesday.

It was the total number of chickens killed over the last two years, Sudarmono, head of the animal disease prevention and eradication subdirectorate said.

"Since its first outbreak, we have conducted various prevention efforts, including vaccination of healthy chickens, surveillance programs and bio-security through the implementation of tight inspection of livestock and human beings," Antara news agency quoted Sudarmono as saying.

The efforts have generated good results, even though, sporadically, special incidents still took place, especially with quails and other local fowl, he said.

Vaccination programs were applied at small-scale poultry farms as the large-scale ones already had their own vaccination schedules, he added.

Sudarmono said that last year alone the Ministry of Agriculture distributed 296 million dosages of vaccine, of which 70 percent had been done this year.

Source: Xinhua