KARACHI: Chicken safe for human consumption, moot told
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, March 7: Field works and surveillance reports suggest that chickens in the country are safe for human consumption and people should not be concerned about bird flu hazard.
These views were expressed by provincial health minister, government officials and poultry farmers’ representatives at a gathering on Monday night.
The Poultry Joint Action Committee, a body formed in the wake of bird flu diseases spread in Asia, had organized the programme at a hotel for a public demonstration that chicken and dishes prepared out of it were completely safe for human consumption.
A couple of speakers expressed the view that the reports about spread of bird flu disease in poultry of Pakistan were baseless. An out-of-proportion blow of apprehensions on the issue for the region was nothing but part of some propaganda to hinder the sizeable developments made in the field of poultry farming and at the same time a move for marketing of a particular brand of vaccines meant for immunity against bird flu, they remarked.
Sindh Health Minister Shabbir Ahmad Qaimkhani said that government departments and poultry farmer bodies were jointly working on the issue of bird flu. He expressed hope that things would be sorted out shortly. The government was giving prime importance to human health and had taken all measures to save people from outbreak of any disease in this regard, he added.
However, he mentioned that the issue needed to be handled carefully as it involved the fast developing poultry industries, involving huge investments made in the cities and rural areas.
Referring to a request of the Pakistan Poultry Association, the minister said that he would soon be arranging a meeting of farmers with the governor so that their problems could be heard and addressed accordingly.
Khalil Sattar, founder chairperson of PPA, said that the poultry farming was undergoing a crucial phase.
During the last 18 months, about 28,000 samples had been collected by federal and provincial agencies for laboratory tests, but no cases of bird flu positive could be detected so far, which showed that the hue and cry over bird flu in the country was uncalled for.
Health Secretary Dr Noshad A. Shaikh and Livestock Secretary Baz Mohammad Junejo stated that people should rest assured that government was high alert on the issue and it would not conceal any case of bird flu if detected in chicken or transmitted to human beings. Both the livestock and health departments were working in close coordination for surveillance and monitoring of poultry farms, they said.
Additional Health Secretary Dr Abdul Majid, who is the focal person on bird flu, regretted that rumours had been generated about bird flu by the vested interest. The migratory birds, which were considered as the main source for spread of bird flu, were returning and as such doubting the disease in Pakistani birds and chickens was uncalled for, he added. During a span of 10 years, he said, the number of bird flu cases among humans transmitted from chickens had been 173.
Sindh PPA chairman Muhammad Hussain Patel said poultry industry was growing with a rate of 10 per cent every year and when it was expected that the volume of poultry and its allied trades would double in the next five years, the debate of bird flu had badly reversed the process as the poultry industry was suffering a loss of Rs250 to Rs300 millions every day now.
MNA Mohammad Hussain Mehnti said that he wanted to assure the masses that all known preventive measure were already being taken at farms and there did not arise any question of bird flu in the country.
Tariq Aziz of Sindh Balochistan Feed and Chicks Dealers also spoke.
