By IANS
Islamabad : Reports of fresh cases of avian influenza from Karachi have prompted the Pakistani government to regulate the country’s poultry industry, comprising some 26,000 farms, to control the spread of bird flu.
“We are taking measures to regulate the poultry farms,” Dawn Sunday quoted Animal Husbandry Commissioner Rafiqul Hassan Usmani as saying.
He called for measures on war footing to contain the disease, which was first officially confirmed in the country in 2006.
Health ministry spokesman Orya Maqbool hinted that the government was contemplating an ordinance to regulate the poultry sector, saying that “human lives are much more important than business”.
Over 5,000 birds have died over the past week after the disease was reported in two farms in the suburbs of Karachi. Last year, there were 79 incidents of bird flu outbreak, with one human casualty reported.
“Experts believe that an unregulated poultry sector, where workers seldom care about protective measures, has been the major reason behind the outbreaks,” Dawn said.
According to Usmani, the government had so far been maintaining an “open policy” to promote the poultry sector under which only a no-objection certificate from the environment ministry was required to establish a farm.
However, frequent outbreaks of bird flu had forced a rethink in the strategy and the registration of poultry farms was being started.
In reply to a question, Usmani said that “under reporting” of the disease by farmers was the grey area in the anti-bird flu initiative.
“We have all resources available with us to fight the problem but reporting of the disease by poultry farmers has to be improved,” he maintained.