LAHORE, April 25: The new castle disease has played havoc with the commercial poultry farms by perishing 44.59 million broilers during last five months and causing a total loss of around Rs6 billion in the Punjab province alone.

University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS) Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Talat Naseer Pasha said this while speaking at a meeting on “New castle disease and its control” on the varsity campus here on Wednesday.

Prof Pasha said the real problems included short farm to farm distance, improper bio-security and lack of farm management skills.

He said the university was playing pivotal role in overcoming the new castle outbreak. In a major development, he said, the university in collaboration with Veterinary Research Institute and Pakistan Poultry Association had developed vaccine by using velogenic strain.

Punjab Agriculture and Livestock Minister Ahmad Ali Aulakh urged the veterinarians to chalk out a strategy to eradicate the new castle disease.

He said it was the need of the hour to formulate legal framework to address the irrational import of poultry vaccines.

He said most of human as well as animal medicines were being found as spurious.