Ministry approves disinfectant for protection against bird flu
The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) says it has tested and approved a disinfectant that can protect poultry farms from the destructive bird flu virus. A Deputy Minister of the sector, Dr Hannah Bissiw, said the disinfectant, known as Patholyte which is already on the market, had the potency to fight the virus causing bird flu.
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She announced this at a training programme in Accra aimed at empowering journalists to report on the Avian Influenza, in a manner that would not cause fear among consumers and also compromise the economic interest of poultry farmers.
Organised by UNICEF and the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), the one-day event, which attracted more than 30 journalists from both print and electronic media brought resource persons from the Veterinary Services Department (VSD), the Ghana Health Service and the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR).
Participants were taken through the situational report on Avian influenza in Ghana, risk communication and social mobilisation, the role of the media in controlling the disease and why humans should be conscious of the disease.
Movement permit
The Veterinary Services Department of MoFA in July this year temporarily banned the sale and movement of live birds in Accra to prevent further outbreaks of Avian Influenza in the city and its environs.
Dr Bissiw urged vendors of live birds and poultry farmers who want to move the birds to the markets to acquire permits and certificates.
She warned that poultry farmers and vendors without health and movement certificates would have their products destroyed.
“We are not going to have any test runs, we are not going to send you to court. If it is eggs, we will destroy them, and if they are birds, we will gas them,” she cautioned.
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She advised poultry farmers or vendors who were in a dilemma about the contamination status of their birds to call their mobile veterinary to conduct tests for their health permits and movement certificates.
She urged the media to avoid sensationalism in the reportage of issues concerning the flu as inaccurate reportage could destroy the livelihood of farmers.
Dr Bissiw cited the example of an Accra-based radio station that persistently told the public that she had urged the public not to touch poultry during a recent Muslim festivity, explaining that the false reportage caused the poultry industry a lot of money.
Reported cases
The first reported case of bird flu during the recent outbreak was in May 4, 2015. So far, 35 cases had been reported with Greater Accra recording 29 cases. Four other regions—Volta, Ashanti, Western and Central have also recorded outbreaks.
According to the Veterinary Services Department figures, while 75,082 birds were susceptible to the disease, 24,901 birds had died from the disease with 50,181, destroyed.
An amount of GH¢ 3.5 million has been approved as compensation for farmers who had birds worth GH¢ 1,186,356, destroyed in addition to some structures.
The Deputy Director of the VSD, Dr Paul Polkuu, expressed worry over the failure of some farmers to report suspected cases early enough and instead resorted to treatment for Newcastle disease, which had symptoms similar to bird flu.
He said the situation was so bad that some of the farmers reported the cases after 30 days when they should have done so within 24 hours.
He also urged the media to seek clarification from the appropriate sources in order not to misinform the public because issues concerning bird flu were about consumers as well as the economic right of poultry farmers.
Awareness
To keep stakeholders informed about the disease, he said the VSD with the support of some development partners sensitised the security services and held a trainer of trainers programme in Kumasi on bio security for members of the Ghana National Poultry Farmers Association.
A Communications expert from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Mr David Youngs, while applauding the media for showing concerns about the disease, called for extreme caution since any form of miscommunication had the tendency to cause fear and panic among the public.
Some of the participants expressed misgivings about the deputy minister being the central point of information, instead of the technical people on the ground, especially when getting access to updated information was difficult.
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Background
The Veterinary Services Department first banned the importation of poultry and poultry products from Burkina Faso in April this year as a counter measure against the outbreak of bird flu in Ghana, following an outbreak of the deadly disease in that country.
The NMIMR in May this year, confirmed the outbreak of bird flu in Accra. Five out of six sample tests conducted by the institute proved positive for the bird flu virus.
According to the institute, the samples were received from two farms located at Achimota and Tema on May 15, 2015.
On May 12, 2015, the MoFA lab confirmed that some birds in the Greater Accra Region had been infected by bird flu.
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