Bird flu virus sends Bangladesh on high alert

The Ministry of Health in Bangladesh after a bird flu case was confirmed in Karachi.

Bird flu, also known as the H5N1 virus, has spread to three more districts of Bangladesh sending the populated country into high alert. According to the Health Ministry, all the hospitals have been directed to set up isolation wards beforehand.

The latest outbreaks were reported in southwestern Gopalganj, northeastern Sylhet and northern Mymensingh district, officials said.

The sources said there were at least 25,800 poultry farms in the country and any person could open a poultry farm after obtaining an NOC from the Ministry of Livestock.

The Ministry of Health also said no human case of Avian Influenza had been officially reported from any part of the country following its outbreak in a poultry farm in Gadap, Karachi.

Addressing a press conference, Ministry of Health spokesman Oriya Maqbool Jan said the provincial and district governments had been directed to adopt the recommended measures for preventing and averting outbreak of Avian Influenza.

The Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (MINFAL) spokesman Dr Arif Usmani said 18 rapid response teams are currently in the country to provide humanitarian aid during the outbreak of the bird flu at poultry farms.

Since 2003, he said, MINFAL had been carrying out countrywide surveillance through a network of 12 laboratories linked with the central reference lab at Islamabad and monitoring the situation. During the year 2006, he said, around 68 poultry outbreaks were reported following which 250,000 chickens were culled while in the year 2007 as many as 180,000 chickens were culled as a result of 47 poultry outbreaks.

Touching or eating sick poultry is the common way to become infected by the bird flu virus that has killed more than 220 people globally since late 2003.

To date no human infection has been reported in Bangladesh, though some 4 million people are involved in poultry farming across the land.