ISLAMABAD, Oct 24: Pakistan on Monday banned import of pet birds, poultry and poultry products to avert a possible outbreak of bird flu in the country. Secretary Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (MINFAL) Ismail Qureshi told Dawn that keeping in view involvement of migratory birds in spread of the disease, it was decided that surveillance should also cover wild birds.
To keep lethal H5 N1 virus at bay, Pakistan included Croatia in the list of those countries from where it would not import poultry and poultry products. Islamabad has already stopped import of poultry and poultry products from 13 Avian Influenza infected countries.
The secretary said in order to counter the menace the government had sent a proposal to the Geneva Conference—a group of multinationals—envisaging $10 million assistance to Pakistan for effective surveillance to check the disease.
He said the request would be considered in the meeting of the Geneva Conference scheduled to be held in first week of November.
To a question, he said that so far Avian flu has not been reported in poultry from any part of the country.
He said a high level meeting finalized a strategy for countering the menace. Director generals of provincial livestock departments, representatives from the ministry of health and the poultry sector attended the meeting.
It was decided that the strategy will be implemented by Minfal, provincial governments and the private sector.
The strategy included establishment of quick response mechanism for early disease reporting, upgradation of laboratory facilities, setting up of disease surveillance and monitoring teams in the provinces. The compensation would also be given in case of any damage to the poultry products.
It was also stressed that training to handle suspected cases, may also be imparted to the provincial staff.
The Minfal secretary informed the participants that federal government has already allocated Rs40 million to handle any likely crisis.
The Croatia was included in the list of banned countries following the detection of the second case of the H5 bird flu virus. In Britain, the first bird to have died of the deadly H5N1 0 - ? strain of avian flu. In China, Thailand massive operation has been started to stop the outbreak of the disease particularly transferring to humans.
A new outbreak of avian flu has been detected in Russia’s Altai region in southern Siberia, after the disease had been detected in the Urals and in the Tula region south of Moscow last week.