March 10, 2011

 

Bangladesh experiences more bird flu outbreaks in 2011

 

 

Outbreaks of H5N1 bird flu among poultry in Bangladesh which occurred three times more than the same period last year have caused authorities to express serious concern over the issue.

 

"We are undertaking heavy surveillance at farms and teams are supervising markets to prevent sick chickens from being sold," Director-General of the Department of Livestock, Mohammad Ashraf Ali said.

 

The avian flu death toll may increase as such outbreaks typically occur up to June, said the chief technical adviser for the Food and Agriculture Organisation, Mat Yamage.

 

However, reports of increases may not be a bad thing, he noted. "One hypothesis for the increased number of outbreaks, though unconfirmed, is that farmers are more willing to report bird flu because the rate of compensation more than doubled this year. This is a positive development, as farmers generally no longer opt to sell sick poultry."

 

Ashraf said the loss to farmers was still being estimated; he was unwilling to give the precise compensation levels per bird.

 

Yamage said he could not give a figure for compensation because it depended on the type of bird and its age, adding, "It will not be possible to calculate the total losses suffered by the poultry industry until much later. There are also secondary effects, such as a loss of consumer confidence."

 

A compensation figure of US$2.80/bird has been mentioned in some areas.

 

While the government has trained farmers how to prevent the spread of H5N1, it is still worrying that farmers may not be practising bio-security, such as using solid fences and nets to quarantine infected flocks, and disinfecting footwear, said Yamage.

 

"Bangladesh has a very high population density and as every backyard farm has poultry, it is very easy for the virus to spread from one backyard to another," said Ashraf.

 

Since the beginning of the year, 200,000 birds have been culled in 92 outbreaks. About two million birds have been culled since the first outbreak in 2007.

 

Bird flu was first detected in Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, in March 2007 and one human case was reported in May 2008.