REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan said the provincial government has issued a regulation in 2007 to control the movement and trade of live poultry in protecting the city residents from the threats of bird flu virus. Anies said the regulation was important to ensure that Jakarta is free from avian influenza (bird flu).

"And to provide the city residents with safe and healthy poultry products," he was quoted by the FAO-Jakarta office as saying at the opening of "Road to Zero Hunger Festival" on Sunday.

The World Health Organization (WHO) noted that, in the last 11 years, there have been 200 cases of avian influenza found in humans in Indonesia, and the Greater Jakarta area recorded the highest number of the cases in the country.

Those cases, as revealed in the FAO press statement made available to Antara, have caused 168 deaths, and the rootcauses of bird flu cases in Jakarta could likely be related to the high level of live poultry entering the capital city.