Ministries join hands to fight bird-flu threat

The Livestock Development Ministry has developed a joint-mechanism with the Health Ministry to monitor the emergence of any case of Bird-flu in the country.

The Health Ministry monitors the flu cases in humans, while the Livestock Development Ministry monitors the health status of poultry.

“Monitoring the health status of poultry is very important because the disease first appears in poultry and then spread to humans. The control of the bird-flu threat must be tackled from the livestock production sector before it is transmitted to humans,” a Ministry release said.

The Livestock Development Ministry said it has developed its own strategy document for tackling the threat of bird-flu from the livestock production angle, which is the Sri Lanka Exotic Disease Emergency Plan.

“This strategy spells out the organisational structure created and the procedures to be adopted to handle any thereat of bird-flu. Based on the experience of other countries which has successfully managed the Bird-Flu outbreaks, such as UK, France, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan etc, we have improved this document and our strategies to meet the challenges,” the Ministry said.

The Ministry has received assistance from the FAO, the USAID and the World Bank to train front-line surveillance teams of veterinarians, to train the disease diagnosing staff, and equip laboratories to test suspected casesw of sick or dead birds.

They have also taken safety measures such as control and regulation of trading/ import of live poultry, poultry products and ingredients used for poultry feed and banning the import of pet birds.