KARACHI, Feb 13: A consultation meeting on bird flu (avian influenza) on Tuesday came up with the suggestion that at least three poultry disease diagnostic laboratories should be set up basing on government and commercial stakeholders’ partnership in the province on priority basis.

The meeting was chaired by the provincial health minister Syed Sardar Ahmad, and attended by senior officials of health, livestock and wildlife departments as well as scientists and representatives of poultry farmers and executive district officials concerned.

The minister said that the diagnostic laboratories could be established at Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur so that rapid collection of blood samples from poultry farms and their testing for detection of virus could be ensured at the earliest, provided the stakeholders prepared a and handed over to him a working paper for the purpose.

He said the establishment of labs in question were not only the need of the province but was also necessary to save time and resources spent on getting the strain of the Bird Flu confirmed from Islamabad based laboratory.

It would be in the fitness of the things to have such labs in the province, where the poultry farming was being done in a considerable size, he said, adding that he could also arrange some government funding for the labs, which should be run by the poultry sector but be monitored by the government.

Sindh health department had convened the meeting to consider any possible outbreak of bird flu and dengue fever in the province. Special Secretary (Public Health) Dr Abdul Majid assisted the health minister during the meeting.

Syed Sardar also stressed the need for developing and strengthening the health, agriculture and livestock departments’ joint surveillance monitoring group on bird flu. He called upon the participants to come up with suggestions leading to lines of actions based on public awareness, early disease reporting and investigation with prompt diagnosis and response.

In their assessment, the participants expressed the view that some recent reporting of bird flu cases in the northern part of the country called for assessing Sindh’s preparedness.

The meeting was told that all the cases reported very recently in the country belonged to backyard or domestic farming and as such there was need to educate those involved in such activities and ask to ensure proper vaccination of their chickens, pigeons, peacocks and other fancy birds on a regular basis.

The current H5N1 virus or Asian bird flu has been circulating in Asia since 1997 and host adaptation to humans has not occurred so far.

It was further said that at present there was no increased risk of infection from eating or handling cooked poultry or poultry products as long as the poultry is cooked to the recommended 165 degrees of Fahrenheit.

Human infection of the Asian bird flu (H5N1) is rare and could only occur when a person comes in close contact with a live, infected bird or an infected bird’s faeces. The virus is transmitted by the infected bird’s respiratory moisture, nasal mucus or faeces, a couple of participants noted.