Bangladesh says detects bird flu in poultry
Dhaka - Bangladesh confirmed on Thursday its first case of bird flu, prompting mass culling of poultry at a farm outside the capital Dhaka, officials said.
“The cabinet held a special meeting on Thursday afternoon after the health ministry confirmed that bird flu was detected at a poultry farm at Savar,” government spokesperson Syed Fahim Munaim said.
The government earlier sent samples from poultry on the farm to the National Institute of Animal Health in Bangkok, which confirmed the presence of the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus.
Bangladesh is home to hundreds of thousands of poultry farms which employ more than a million people.
The head of the country’s interim government, Fakhruddin Ahmed, chaired Thursday’s cabinet meeting, which agreed to measures to prevent the spread of the disease in the South Asian country, home to 144 million people.
“We’ve started culling birds at the infected farm and would now take special measures including restricting movement of birds within a 10-kilometre radius area to contain the disease,” the spokesperson said.
Other measures include health checks on all workers who may have come into contact with the infected birds, he said.
It is unclear how poultry became infected at the farm in Savar town about 40km west of Dhaka.
The government released a statement urging residents to remain calm, saying only birds at the one farm had been infected.
“The government would like to assure (everyone) that there is no reason for any panic or concern. In fact, poultry birds and eggs can be consumed as usual through normal cooking, according to experts,” it said.
A control center has been opened to oversee the culling and carrying out of the virus containment measures, it said.
Bangladesh had already banned imports of live birds from more than 50 countries including neighbouring India and Myanmar after outbreaks were detected there.
bird flu story source: Reuters