Poultry farmers fear bird flu epidemic

Seth J. Bokpe Aug - 10 - 2015 , 22:32

Poultry farmers in the country have raised red flags about a potential bird flu epidemic because of inadequate sensitisation to educate them on the disease.

According to the farmers, the situation could be worse than the reported cases because some of them did not really understand the problem.

Moreover, those who had had their birds killed after officially reporting cases of bird flu were yet to be compensated.

That, they said, was not a motivating factor for any poultry farmer to report the outbreak of the disease on their farms.

The farmers said the situation could be worse on farms or backyards where farmers were engaged in multi-species production.

According to them, the lack of internal movement control mechanisms and inadequate public education on the problem could worsen the situation.

Cost so far

Figures from the Parliamentary Select Committee on Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs in July indicated that the disease had then affected 11 poultry farms in the Greater Accra, Volta and Ashanti regions.

So far, the nation has lost GH¢800,000 due to the destruction of 33,143 birds, 1,058 crates of eggs and 37 bags of feed in the three affected regions.

Call to newsroom

The farmers, who spoke to the Daily Graphic on condition of anonymity, said if stringent measures were not taken, the country would be heading towards an epidemic.

Asked if officials of the Veterinary Services Department were inspecting the farms, they answered in the negative.

There is an increase in the number of bird flu strain cases in the Greater Accra Region.

From the initial case reported around Mile 7, the cases have increased to more than 15 in various districts in the region.

The exact number of birds affected cannot be confirmed, as officials of the Veterinary Services Department referred this reporter to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA).

Efforts to reach MoFA to comment on the issue did not yield fruit.

So far, official cases reported in the Ashanti and the Volta regions remain one and two respectively.

Bird flu is a deadly strain of a virus that attacks poultry and kills them after a short period. The deadly H5N1 bird flu can kill humans too and has killed people worldwide, particularly in Asia and the Middle East, since 2003.

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 Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (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.

At that time, the institute said the virus was from bird-to-bird, adding, however, that it was yet to conduct tests on the handlers of those birds to confirm whether or not the virus had been transferred from birds to humans.

On June 9, MoFA confirmed that some birds in the Greater Accra Region had been infected by bird flu.

According to the ministry, the test results of samples of reported Avian flu cases taken to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) Laboratory in Padova, Italy, proved positive.

On July 2, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs, Mr Gabriel Essilfie, and a Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Hannah Bissiw, appealed to Parliament to intervene in the fight against bird flu, as MoFA lacked funds to fight the disease.

Bird flu outbreak in Ghana in the past

This is not the first time bird flu is giving health and veterinary authorities a headache in Ghana.

The country recorded its first bird flu on May 2, 2007. The virus was first detected on a small-scale poultry farm within the Tema municipality on April 24, 2007.

By September that year, MoFA, in consultation with the Ghana Poultry Development Board, had disbursed over 1.5 billion old cedis as compensation to farmers who had their birds destroyed as a result of the disease.

In that year, 13,371 birds had died, while 27,356 birds were destroyed as part of control measures.