LAHORE, Jan 27: The country in general and Punjab in particular is safe from the bird flu and no case has been detected in the province, said Livestock and Dairy Development Minister Syed Haroon Ahmed Sultan on Tuesday.

Talking to Dawn, the minister claimed that some isolated cases were reported from Karachi last week and teams were sent there to investigate the situation. They found a few cases of avian influenza - H-7 and H-9 - in the layer breed of chicks.

(According to AFP, a Pakistan Agriculture Research Commission official said the virus remained confined to Karachi and had been contained) The chicks, he emphasized, were not infected by H-5 that had spread panic in the Far East and claimed many lives there.

Mr Sultan said avian influenza was a "routine type of disease" which was neither transmittable to humans nor injurious to health. He said it was limited to layers which only hatched table eggs and were not used in human diet. "So, there is no need to panic as far as this disease is concerned," he added.

The minister said all 14 types of vaccines required for immunization of chicks were available in abundant quantity in the province and "every disease is under control". However, he pointed out, the provincial government was constantly watching the situation. He said the Far East was in grip of a particular variety of flu i.e H-5 and added: "The country in general and Punjab in particular is safe from H-5. Yet, a vaccination drive has been planned to further secure the industry and imports from infected countries have been stopped forthwith."

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) denied any outbreak of H-5 type flu and demanded an inquiry against those "spreading such rumours". Talking to Dawn, a representative of the association, Mr Basit, explained that avian influenza H-7 and H-9 had broken out in Karachi in November. He said those varieties had only affected layers. It never hit broiler chicken, he added.

He said when the disease spread in Karachi, the industry slaughtered over 1.5 million affected birds. It arranged for vaccine and controlled it, he claimed. No further case had since been reported, he said. He asked the federal government to start an inquiry into the spread of rumours as they would affect the industry badly. He claimed that one of the orders, by a Saudi importer, had already been cancelled.

AFP adds: Officials and country's poultry breeders were at odds over the number of chickens infected with bird flu, as the government rejected poultry industry estimates that 3.5 million chickens had died of the virus.

The PPA said relatively mild strains of avian influenza had caused deaths of 3.5 million chickens around Karachi over the past three months. "We are sure that an estimated 3.5 million birds have died of that virus since late October," spokesman Afsar Qadri said. "We were not convinced earlier of the provincial government laboratories' test but now the outbreak of avian influenza is proven as other laboratories have confirmed it," he pointed out.

But Sindh Agriculture and Livestock Minister Manzoor Panwhar said figures were exaggerated and suggested the toll was under one million. "We believe that avian influenza has caused deaths among 10 per cent of the total layer's population and PPA figures appear to be exaggerated," he said.

He would not give the number of layers in the province, but Mr Qadri estimated that 7 to 8 million layers were bred at farms around Karachi. The minister said the government would meet poultry industry leaders to discuss culling infected birds. "We have summoned a meeting to discuss with farmers' representatives ways and means to overcome the virus," he told AFP.