$5.511 million plan approved to control avian influ

The government has approved the national plan for prevention and control of avian and pandemic influenza, costing 5.511 million dollars. This was stated by Joint Secretary and spokesman of the Ministry of Health Oriya Maqbool Jan Abbasi, while addressing a press conference here on Saturday.

Commissioner of Animal Husbandry, MINFAL, Rafiqul Hassan Usmani, was also present on the occasion. He said that the government was fully aware of the myriad dimensions and sequel of influenza pandemic and was closely monitoring the situation in collaboration with national and international partners across the country. “All the efforts are being made to ensure timely recognition and containment of any cases of avian influenza”, said Oriya.

He informed media that to tackle the outbreak of bird flu, the six-month national programme, costing Rs 1.18 billion, started in July’2007, was in progress. He said that to treat the patients, arrangements had been made at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), Poly Clinic and in all the hospitals of Karachi.

He said that the backyard poultry were the biggest challenge for government to tackle the bird flu issue. It was the responsibility of district government to ensure the safe disposal birds, not the Federal government, he said.

He said that it was very important to create awareness among the masses not to touch or go near to the expired chicken. Eighteen rapid response teams were working across the country to take immediate action as and when the news about the outbreak of bird flu was confirmed at any part of the country, he added.

He asked the media to play a responsible role while reporting on bird flu, and added: “It is of deep concern that media, instead of spreading authentic information about the issue, is creating panic among the general public by disseminating wrong information.

“We request media to be very careful while reporting on this. It is because a slight wrong information could create a lot of problems in the country”, said the Joint Secretary. He said that NIH was in the process of establishing a central lab with capacity of analysing up to 50 virology specimens per month and a network of four provincial public health labs.

Besides this, considering the threat of bird flu in the country, the Ministry of Health had approved the project for establishing the National Reference Bio-Safety level-3 laboratory at NIH, he added. He said anti-viral medicine had been purchased from national manufactures and 6,000 doses stockpiled.

Moreover, the known anti-viral medicines had been registered by the Ministry of Health and some quantity of medicines had been arranged for meeting the emergency, he added.