Chicken culling on

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Over 3,000 more chickens were culled yesterday at poultry farms in Gazipur while some 5,000 fowls died of undetected reasons at a farm in Narayanganj in the last two days.

A total of 3,212 chickens, including 962 chicks, of a poultry farm at Jirani in Gazipur were culled and 31,000 eggs destroyed. With this, the number of culled poultry birds rose to about 36,000.

The Jirani area has been declared an “infected area” for three months under the Bangladesh Animal Diseases Law 2005, official sources said.

District Livestock Officer Dr Kafiluddin Bhuiyan received a letter in this regard from the acting DG of Livestock Directorate.

The incidents have created panic about bird flu at many poultry farms across the country.

Different poultry farms started culling chickens following Thursday’s government acknowledgement of detecting avian influenza virus, popularly known as bird flu, at the state-run Biman Poultry Complex in Savar.

Our Narayanganj correspondent reports: District Livestock Officer (DLO) Dr Abu Taher meanwhile inspected the Shonakanda Poultry Farm yesterday after 5,000 chickens died there mysteriously.

Taher asked everyone not to be panicked saying they are not yet sure whether the poultry birds died of bird flue or fowl cholera.

Earlier, 5,000 fowls died at the same farm between Monday and Friday. Farm officials said they fed the chickens medicine at the suggestion of veterinary doctors but there has been no improvement.

They said they collected the 10,000 chicks from Phoenix Poultry Farm in Savar.

The officials sent two dead chickens to laboratories in Dhaka and Savar to examine the cause of death while the district livestock administration formed 11 teams to investigate the cause.

The farm has been kept under strict observation. The authorities also stopped movement of people near the poultry farm.

The government has also formed monitoring cells and put red alert against the outbreak of bird flu in different poultry farms in Khulna and Chittagong.

Sales of chickens and eggs in the market decreased yesterday significantly.

Agriculture and Livestock Adviser Dr CS Karim yesterday said, “Containment of the situation is our prime task right at this moment.”

At a press briefing, Karim said the authorities will immediately cull the infected birds wherever the reports come from while “the compensation process will follow automatically”.

The agriculture, livestock and health ministries have already opened round-the-clock control rooms to monitor the developments as the government yesterday took a series of steps including examining people’s health at the inflicted farms.

Both the health and agriculture advisers urged the people not to get panicked as no human infliction of avian influenza has been reported yet from anywhere in South Asia.

Health Adviser ASM Matiur Rahman said three separate wards have been opened at the Asthma Centre of the National Chest Diseases Institute and Hospital for possible patients of bird flu.

Avian influenza is a disease of the birds first identified in Italy in the early 1900s and is now known to exist worldwide. In the latest outbreak of bird flu, around 60 people died in Asia.

UNAWARENESS OF SAFETY MEASURES
Officials and staffs at a poultry farm run by the staffs of the government’s Bibi Ayesha (R) Women Training and Production Programme at Jirani were seen culling chickens yesterday without taking any preventive measures.

Visiting the farm yesterday The Daily Star correspondent found that the government and farm staffers were catching chickens, gathering those at a place and killing those without wearing any gloves, masks or aprons needed for staying safe from such deadly virus.

They later buried the chickens and eggs in a hole near the poultry shed before a magistrate and army personnel.

Gazipur DLO Kafiluddin sent a requisition to the civil surgeon for 2,000 preventive capsules for protecting the officials involved in the process of detecting bird flu and treating chickens, but only 100 capsules were supplied.

Meanwhile, an orientation programme has been taken up to check the spread of bird flu virus among the human population.

A two-member team comprising Director of Health Directorate (Disease Control) Dr Abdul Mannan Sarker and Chief Scientific Officer of ICDDR,B Dr Saleh M Rafiq visited Jirani area yesterday. They gave poultry farm officials suggestions on checking the spread of the disease.

Our staff correspondent in Khulna adds: All 55,000 poultry farms in Khulna city and nine upazilas of the district have been put on red alert following the detection of bird flu.

Khulna DLO office opened a control room to monitor the situation round-the-clock.

Considering the current situation, all officials and staff in the district and upazila headquarters have been asked not to take any leave until further notice.

Sources said Benapole check post has also been put on high alert so that no poultry product from India can enter the country.

UNB adds: A monitoring cell has been formed yesterday for detecting bird flu in the district following the detection of bird flu at Savar in Dhaka.

The cell, headed by District Livestock Officer Dr Fazlul Haque Khan, has asked the upazila livestock officers to submit a report by today after visiting poultry farms and hatcheries in their respective upazilas.

If bird flu virus is detected in any farm or hatchery, the official concerned has been asked to seal it off.

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