KARACHI, Jan 21: The city, for that matter the province, does not have a laboratory at which the suitability for consumption, or otherwise, of meat coming from suspect poultry birds and animals could be ascertained, said some experts on Wednesday.

They told Dawn that it was not at all clear whether the chickens afflicted with a strain of the avian influenza disease should be consumed by humans or not. But, they added that the use of the poultry birds should be avoided for the time being.

Dr Altaf Ahmed of the Liaquat National Hospital and Infectious Diseases Society of Pakistan said the province lacked expertise in this area. "Some veterinary microbiologists may or may not be able to shed some light in this regard," he said. "But to my knowledge there are very few individuals, if at all, who could tell us something worthwhile. Also, there's no lab with expertise to handle such an issue."

The people, he said, should avoid consuming chicken meat for the time being. He was of the opinion that eggs should also be avoided. Prof Tipu Sultan said the people who handled live chickens should use gloves and masks. "All the people who are exposed to live chickens, those selling chicken meat or cooking them, should also take precautions."

The professor was of the view that chicken meat cooked for about 10 minutes at a high temperature could be consumed. Dr Qaiser Sajjad of the Pakistan Medical Association said the Vietnamese authorities had ordered the annihilation of all the suspect poultry birds just because some people had fallen ill after consuming chicken meat. "Why can't our authorities too take such a step."

The owners of the poultry farms wanted to be let off the hook simply after vaccinating the chickens against the avian influenza disease. "This is not a satisfactory way of dealing with this issue.

"We know for certain that even in humans vaccines against influenza does not work. So how can we be absolutely sure that vaccines will work in the case of chickens." He called for the establishment of a laboratory at which such issues could be looked into. "Look, we did not come to know about the disease after it had been around for two months.

"This means that we don't have a good system to detect problems like these. There should be a laboratory to deal with such issues. The control of this lab should be in the hands of the city government."

Meanwhile, poultry department of the City District Government Karachi lacks proper mechanism and policy to handle diseases like avian influenza, causing severe economic losses to the poultry business, adds PPI.

No step has been taken by the concerned authorities to stop the supply of chickens affected by the disease and to kill all the affected birds in an effort to stamp out the disease. No ban has also been imposed on the movement of domestic birds, necessary to prevent the spread of the disease.

An official working for the poultry department informed PPI that it was just concerned with regulating the supply of chickens in the city. Another official held poultry farmers responsible for the lack of proper measures, which resulted in the spread of the disease among the birds.

The problem first reared its head in November and within half a month it had spread to Poultry Estate-I, National Highway and Korangi, Karachi. The disease cannot be dealt with without the elimination of all the diseased chickens, said an official.