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Poultry products in Mysore are said to be safe.
The district administration has taken steps to prevent an outbreak of bird flu and has allayed fears of the disease spreading to the district. It has also urged the public not to panic as surveillance measures were initiated four months ago, and these are being stepped up as a precautionary measure after cases of the disease were reported from Maharashtra. "There is no need to panic as chances of the flu spreading to Mysore are remote since no poultry products are imported to the district, which has always exported them," Deputy Commissioner S. Selvakumar has said. Review meeting Mr. Selvakumar held a review meeting with senior officials of the Department of Animal Husbandry on Monday. Poultry farm owners and traders of poultry products also attended the meeting. At the meeting, it was decided to continue random collection of blood samples from all poultry farms in the district. These will be sent to the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory (HSADL) in Bhopal for analysis. More than 500 random samples have been collected and there is not a single positive case from Mysore, the Deputy Commissioner said. `Media hype' Representatives of the poultry industry expressed anguish over what they termed "media hype" over cases of bird flu in India. They said this will affect the poultry industry. While promising to extend full cooperation to the authorities in implementing preventive measures, farm owners appealed that blood samples be collected only where there is an abnormal increase in the fatality rate of chickens in hatcheries. It is estimated that around 50 chickens out of one lakh die owing to various causes every day, and this considered a normal fatality rate. However, this suggestion was dismissed by Deputy Director of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services Devadas, who said prevention is better than cure and one cannot wait till the birds are infected. Blood samples Poultry farm representatives offered to take the blood samples themselves and hand them over to the authorities saying that the exercise would otherwise create panic among poultry workers. However, this was rejected by Mr. Devadas who said that the collection of blood samples was a routine exercise . It has been decided to collect 10 random blood samples from each farm and the authorities will visit one farm a day. The authorities and poultry farm owners will educate workers on maintaining hygiene and on proper disposal of poultry waste. People have been advised to consume chicken cooked at more than 70 degree Celsius for at least 30 minutes. There are 91 poultry farms in the district with nearly 30 lakh chickens that produce 25 lakh eggs a day. In addition, there are 350 broiler farms that contain 16 lakh broiler chickens. Nearly 20,000 broiler chickens are sold in the district a day. The district exports poultry products to neighbouring States such as Kerala.
# Posted : Thursday, February 23, 2006
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