ISLAMABAD, Feb 20: The government on Monday announced preventive measures in the wake of spread of the H5N1 bird flu virus in neighbouring countries, but said Pakistan was free from the virus.

A high-level meeting of the ministries of health and food, agriculture and livestock took a number of measures to prevent the spread of bird flu in the country, including putting an immediate ban on import of poultry products and live birds from India, Iran and France where cases of bird flu have been reported.

“Till now we are safe, but we should do our best through preventive measures and today’s meeting was part of that process,” Secretary Health Anwar Mehmood told Dawn after the meeting.

The government had called an inter-provincial meeting to be held within next two to three days to take stock of the latest situation in the country, he said.

The meeting, presided over by Health Minister Mohammad Nasir Khan, decided to enhance surveillance, expand testing facilities across the country and established help lines.

In this regard, four senior government officers have been designated as focal persons: Rana Mohammad Ikhlaq, phone numbers 051-9206303, 0304-5320953; Dr M Afzal, phone numbers 051-9205092, 0300-5186861; Dr Birjees Mazhar Kazi, phone numbers 051-9255238, and Dr Jalil Kamran, phone numbers 051-9255090-4, 0333-5546989.

The meeting suggested the provincial and district governments to activate their local livestock and wildlife departments for effective surveillance and monitoring through close interaction with the poultry farmers.

Over 3,000 veterinary experts across the country have been tasked to keep a close vigil on the situation and maintain continuous liaison with the livestock departments.

However, the meeting noted that Pakistan was still free from bird flu, but it needed to take all precautionary measures to ward off any threat. The primary focus of the preventive measures would be poultry handlers and health workers.

A national strategy for prevention and control of avian influenza is already in place under which six rapid response teams have been established by the food ministry.

Pakistan has the capacity to diagnose bird virus through 12 laboratories located in different parts of the country and also a central laboratory functioning in the National Agricultural Research Council (NARC), Islamabad, which has been declared as the regional hub laboratory by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Twelve surveillance teams are working in the country.

The health ministry has created a small stock of Temiflu and requested the World Health Organization (WHO) to provide more doses of Temiflu used in the treatment of bird flu.