By Yoga Rusmana

JAKARTA, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Indonesia, the country with the highest number of bird flu deaths in the world, intends to bar city residents from keeping chickens and other poultry in their backyards, ministers said on Friday.

Indonesia has become a frontline in the battle against the virus that has killed 55 people in the sprawling country, where millions of chickens roam freely in urban residential areas.

Despite the rising human death toll, the government has resisted mass culling of birds, citing the expense and impracticality in the developing country of 220 million people, where the bird flu threat is not seen as a high priority by many.

"There are laws banning poultry in cities in Thailand and Hong Kong. We will also carry that out soon," Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari told reporters without giving a timeline.

"Principally, I think human beings and poultry need to be separated," he added.

Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono said a set of legal guidelines were being worked out. "We need law enforcement. We have issued ministerial edicts regulating that poultry in urban areas need to be in cages," he told reporters.

Bird flu has now killed 151 people in nine countries since 2003, according to figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO). Scientists fear the virus could mutate into a form that can be passed easily between people, leading to a possible human pandemic which could kill millions.

However, Indonesia's chief welfare minister Abrizal Bakrie said there were no indications this would happen soon.

"There is no indication leading to a pandemic. There has been no mutation and the spread is still from poultry to humans," he said after ministers met to discuss bird flu developments.

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