Bali restaurants nervous about ayam kampung

Prodita Sabarini, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar

A number of hotels and restaurants in Bali have dropped chicken from their menus after two people were confirmed to have died of bird flu on the island over the last two weeks.

“Some hotels and restaurants have reduced the amount of chicken in their menus due to the recent bird flu outbreak,” the head of the Bali chapter of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI) Cok Oka Ardhana Sukawati said Wednesday.

Ardhana said one restaurant in the hill town of Ubud had totally slashed chicken from its menu while others reduced the amount of chicken in their menus by nearly two-thirds.

“They’ve created completely different menus for their guests,” he said.

The step was taken in the wake of Wednesday’s confirmation of the second bird flu death on the island, a 28-year-old woman known as AS from Kediri in the island’s Tabanan regency.

Another woman, 29-year-old SW from Negara in Jembrana regency, was confirmed to have died of the virus in post-mortem tests last week.

The confirmation of the 28-year-old’s death Wednesday brought the nation’s bird flu toll to 84 deaths out of 105 confirmed human cases, the highest of any country in the world.

A spokeswoman for the Westin Resort Hotel in the exclusive enclave of Nusa Dua said the hotel took chicken off the menu in response to the outbreak, which has seen mass cullings and restrictions of the trade in poultry.

“We took that step after we heard news of the woman’s death last week,” Reinata Tjoa said Wednesday.

Reinata said that the step was a preventive measure, despite public announcements by the World Health Organization (WHO) that avian influenza is not transmissible through cooked food.

“It’s just a preventive measure. In fact, our restaurant actually focuses on seafood,” she said.

She said that the Westin’s Ikan restaurant would keep its chicken-free menu until the current bird flu outbreak in Bali abated.

However, not all Nusa Dua restaurants have taken chicken off the menu. Niko Bali Resort and Spa spokesperson Fretty Widiasafitri said the hotel’s Kupu-Kupu Amphitheater restaurant would stick to its usual menu.

“We have assured that our suppliers are certified and have been audited by the Health Ministry. We also make sure that all meat is cooked at 70 degrees Celsius,” she said.

Poultry farmers have yet to experience a decline in demand, despite some restaurants cutting back on chicken dishes.

The head of the Bali chapter of the Indonesian Farmers Union, Nyoman Suparta, said the demand for chicken was still within the average range of 100,000 animals per day. He said farmers had taken the security measure of spraying chicken coops with disinfectants every 2 days.

The recent deaths, as well as the spread of disease through birds, has raised concerns about tourism on the resort island, which has only just started to recover from the aftermath of terrorist bombings in 2005 and 2002.

The Bali chapter of PHRI has called on the Bali administration to clear popular tourist destinations such as Sanur, Nusa Dua, and Kuta from live poultry.

“We’ve urged the local government to instruct the public to put down their fowl,” Ardhana said.

Some Balinese households have open chicken coops in their backyards, leaving the birds free to roam around the neighborhood.

Bali Hotels Association executive director Djinaldi Gosana said that the hotels were willing to chip in to pay for compensation for chicken owners.