A major drill initiative is taking place in Indonesia, as authorities have prepared a three-day bird flu crisis exercise.

The simulation is the biggest one attempted by the country and involves about 5,000 people, from police officers and military personnel to local residents, doctors and government officials.

"This is a very important event from the perspective of public health. It will certainly help better equip Indonesia in the event of a pandemic. But other countries struggling to contain bird flu outbreaks can and will learn from this exercise as well," said Subhash Salunke, of the World Health Organization, according to the Associated Press.

The plan involves the isolation of a village in Bali and the set of a field hospital in order to take care of people with flu-like symptoms. The scenario will then take the officials to one of the international airports where they will try to stop some “infected” travelers from leaving the country and spreading the virus.

The decision to start such an assignment was related to a report made by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, which has categorized the Indonesian efforts to control bird flu over the past few months as rather small.

Indonesia has the worst bird flu records in recent years, with 107 flu-related deaths out of the global 240 recorded fatalities. The country is also considered a “hot spot” for the virus, and one of the main fears refers to the mutation of the virus and the potential significant damage it could inflict on humans.