Indonesians Love Chicken, Bird Flu Scare or Not

In Indonesia, however, the issue of bird flu has all but vanished from the front pages of the newspapers. Peddlers hawking spicy chicken soup with coconut milk from pushcarts boast of a brisk business.

The U.S.-based restaurant chain KFC, which operates 242 outlets across the archipelago, recorded a slight decline in sales when bird flu was first reported two years ago, but they rebounded within a week, according to Adi S. Tjahjadi, customer relations manager. A colorful poster at the entrance to the KFC restaurant across from his office reads: "Eating chicken and eggs that was perfectly cooked is not dangerous. Remember, being alert is not being afraid." It informs customers of the precautions taken to properly prepare the chicken. But few who visit the restaurant allow themselves to note the details.

Indonesians have already surmised what researchers demonstrated in findings published last month: It's awfully tough to catch bird flu. Two teams of scientists found that the virus has trouble attaching to human cells in the nose, throat and upper airway, making infection unlikely.

Bjorge and other influenza specialists warn that the real danger would arise if the virus mutated into a new form easily passed from one person to the next. That could spark a global outbreak, killing millions in a matter of months.

At the Jatinegara market, a heavyset woman with a sweat-soaked T-shirt named Yulianti reported that sales from her chicken counter had dropped by half when the first Indonesian died from the virus in July. But they bounced back within two months.

"The media coverage of the first bird flu cases really blew them up big. Then it died down, so the people came back," said Yulianti, 30, with a broad smile, wiping her forehead with a rag as she peddled feet and livers off the tile countertop. "Indonesians have become resilient because the cases are such a regular thing."

Around her, shoppers strolled the muddy tile floors of the indoor market, perusing odd bits and pieces of chicken in the twilight of a few naked bulbs dangling from the high ceiling. Some recalled swearing off chicken for the first two weeks until the Indonesian government issued assurances that poultry properly cooked at more than 160 degrees was safe to eat.

Others, like Diah Febriantiene, 32, who was lugging three whole chickens and the innards of a fourth in a plastic bag, said she never stopped buying poultry. "My son won't eat fish," she said.

Public fears over bird flu have been overtaken by the anxieties of daily life in Indonesia: the doubling of fuel prices last year, recurring outbreaks of dengue fever, a food scare prompted by illicit use of formaldehyde as a preservative, floods, landslides and, in recent days, the threat of volcanic eruption. Other diseases, such as malaria and tuberculosis, have continued to claim far more casualties than bird flu has.

Nor are poultry deaths anything new. Most Indonesians grow up with chickens and are accustomed to seeing them fall over from mysterious causes each rainy season. Across an alley from the Jatinegara chicken market, some of the old-time butchers suggested the Indonesian government had concocted the story of bird flu to distract people from economic hardship.

"People don't really believe you eat chicken and then you die," said Nashirin, 50, a skinny butcher whose frequent smile revealed a set of crooked teeth. "They've been eating chicken forever, and they just keep doing what they've been doing."

His words were interrupted by the defiant cackling of scores of chickens awaiting their fate in dirty cages fashioned from bamboo and wire mesh. Several butchers, some barefoot and wearing only shorts, were squatting among the pools of blood, hacking apart the carcasses and untangling their insides with bare hands.

"There's no reason to worry about bird flu," said Mohamed Nur, 42, a burly man with a soiled green T-shirt and blood-splattered pants. "Not only don't we die, we don't even get sick. And we cut up chickens every day."

Special correspondent Yayu Yuniar contributed to this article.