JAKARTA, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Indonesia will declare bird flu a national disaster following a fresh flare-up in the country, which has the world's highest human death toll from the virus, the planning minister said on Wednesday. The move will guarantee financial support from a special budget fund for efforts to tackle the disease. Six Indonesians have died of bird flu this year, taking the country's death toll to 63, and several suspected cases have been admitted to hospital since the start of the year. A spokesman of Sardjito hospital in Yogyakarta said the hospital was treating 14 suspected bird flu patients. The H5N1 bird flu virus is endemic in poultry in most provinces in the archipelago of 17,000 islands spread across thousands of kilometres. "Bird flu has now entered the category of a national disaster. It is an epidemic, the funding will be allocated from a disaster fund in the state budget," Paskah Suzetta said. "The president will announce it. He has indicated that this is a national disaster. The handling of this will no longer be on an ad hoc basis, but it will be done comprehensively." Indonesia said in December it planned to ramp up its fight against the virus and hoped to beat it by the end of 2007. The country will raise anti-bird flu funding to $61 million in 2007, up from the $46.45 million previously planned and the $55 million allocated for last year. The international community has also pledged to provide $65 million to help Indonesia combat the disease in 2007, compared to $35 million in 2006. As part of its efforts, Indonesia has launched a campaign against backyard birds. Jakarta's governor has announced that birds must have flu-free certificates from authorities by Feb. 1. Although bird flu remains essentially an animal disease, experts fear it could mutate into a form that could pass easily among humans, possibly killing millions. The virus has killed at least 164 people since 2003, according to WHO. At least 200 million birds, the majority of them chickens and ducks, have died or been culled, costing farmers and the poultry industry billions of dollars across dozens of countries.
