ISLAMABAD, Oct 20: Pakistan is considering a proposal to ban import of poultry to prevent any possible outbreak of bird flu in the country. Secretary Ministry of Food Agriculture and Livestock Mohammad Ismail Qureshi told Dawn on Thursday that the issue would be taken up at a higher level to either ban the import or adopt more proactive measures to meet the challenges of the H5NI strain of avian influenza.

Mr Qureshi said that a decision to this effect would be announced in the next couple of days.

Analysts said that in case Pakistan did not deal with the issue on a priority basis and take necessary measures at the earliest, the possible outbreak of the virus might result in devastating the local poultry industry like it did a couple of years ago.

The countries where bird flu has been detected so far include Turkey, Romania, Greece, Russia and China.

The secretary said that Pakistan might have a very limited amount of live poultry imported as most of the domestic demand was met through local poultry production. However, he said that in some cases frozen chicken was being imported from several countries.

He did not rule out importing frozen chicken from China because of the possibility of its price being less than that of local frozen chicken.

Elaborating further, the Minfal secretary said that a national avian influenza surveillance system with the assistance of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN had already been developed.

The system, he said, includes a central avian influenza laboratory at the National Agriculture Research Centre, Islamabad, and 12 satellite laboratories spread throughout the country.

He said that during the last one year 7,200 blood samples, 14,850 cloacal swabs and 1,580 tissue samples had been collected and processed in these laboratories.

He said so far only the H7 strain had been reported in Pakistan and there was no evidence of the presence of H5NI strain, which had killed at least 60 people in South East Asian countries since 2003.