ISLAMABAD (March 21 2004): The government has signed an agreement with the FAO to get financial assistance of US$ 390,000 for the training of farmers and government workers on the safe disposal of disease relating to birds.

Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) had offered a grant in assistance worth US$ 3,90,000 for implementation of disinfection techniques of the farms, mapping, disease modelling, zoning and enhanced laboratory diagnostic capacity.

An outbreak of avian influenza was reported in the outskirts of Karachi during November and December 2003, which caused a heavy loss in terms of mortality and culling of affected birds.

Taking immediate and necessary actions, the serum and tissue samples from the birds in the affected areas were collected and submitted to VRI, Lahore, NARC Islamabad, NVL, Islamabad and World Reference Laboratories, Weybridge, UK for diagnosis and analysis of its typing.

All these laboratories reported that H7 & H9 had affected Pakistan, which is poultry specific and do not infect human beings. Since January 31, 2004 no fresh case of avian influenza has been reported even in Karachi.

Since December last, an epidemic of highly pathogenic avian influenza in layers caused by a virus called Influenza A (H7 & H9 Strain) has been reported in Karachi outskirts.

It resulted in mortality of 1.2 million of layers and in addition to this, another 0.5 million of layers in the affected area were culled.

This epidemic is historically unprecedented in its scale, geographical spread and economic consequences for their sector.

This sort of epidemic has also been reported in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Republic of Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.

In these countries the epidemic also has implications for human health because H5 N1 strains have a documented propensity to exchange genes with viruses from other species. And this genetic re-assortment may lead to an emergence of a new Influenza sub-type with pandemic potential.

Fortunately H5 N1 has not been reported to date in Pakistan, which has capacity to cause infection and severe disease in humans.

The government, however, imposed inter-provincial ban on the movement of poultry chicken.

Poultry farmers are being persuaded to ensure that only healthy chicken is supplied to consumers under strict hygienic standard.

Information sharing among the countries in Asia regarding avian influenza is being undertaken to help control this epidemic.

Courtesy Business Recorder