The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

Sales in the city's fast food shops have marked a sharp fall as customers continued to ignore chicken items out of bird flu fear, hitting hard the booming fast-food business. "We're passing through a very critical time as our sales have dropped by 50 percent. Even our regular customers hardly visit our shops and those who come are scared of taking chicken items," said Sohel Rana, supervisor of 'Chicken King', a popular fast food shop in Dhanmondi area.

While visiting different first food shops in Gulshan, Dhanmondi, Motijheel, New Market, Mouchak and Bailey Road areas, it was seen that customers were mainly taking beef, mutton and vegetable items ignoring chicken ones.

Even if someone wants to go for chicken, s/he is discouraged by others. The only reason: bird flu. But experts say there is nothing to be scared in taking chicken items as the bird flu virus, H5N1, cannot survive in food that is cooked in 70 degrees Celsius temperature.

"I was a regular customer of 'Helvetia', but I had not been there for the last few months as most of its items are of chicken," Faria Hossain, a private university student, said while taking beef burger at another fast food shop, 'Harvest Home', at Rifle Squares, a posh shopping mall of the city.

"I like fried chicken too much but I've stopped taking it since I saw reports on chicken culling because I'm a very health conscious person," Kazi Rafiqul Islam, a businessman, told Abdur Rahman Jahangir while having a fish burger at KFC fast food shop in Gulshan. When reminded about the prescription of experts that bird flu virus cannot survive in the food that is cooked in over 70 degrees of temperature, Islam said, "I know that but I don't trust these experts. I'll take chicken only when the government will officially declare that there is no bird flu in the country."

Farzana Ahmed, a housewife who went to Bamboo Castle fast food shop at Bailey Road along with her minor daughter, said her daughter likes chicken items most but she preferred beef items for them because of bird flu fear. She is even unwilling to buy chicken and egg for her family lest bird flu virus spreads during the processing of those for cooking.

Delwar, a regular customer of Golden Food, said, "I'm here to have my favourite fast food item fried chicken." Asked about bird flu scare, he said, "I'm not at all scared because I know the virus is completely destroyed during cooking."

However, the staff of the fast food shops are not ready to allow their valued customers to go away. They have also invented their own strategies to persuade them. Waiters and mangers in most of the fast food shops were found trying to manage customers showing doctor's certificate that their chicken are bird flue free.

When contacted, manager of Helvetia, Mohsin, said, "We've directed our waiters in our six outlets in the city to convince the customers in every way. We've asked them to show the customers a GrammenPhone message in favour of taking chicken and show doctor's certificate and opinions of the experts. And we also tell them we cook our items in over 300 degree temperature."

Recognising a sharp fall in consumption of chicken items at his shops, Mohsin said, "We're working hard to tackle the situation, but we alone can't overcome it, we need government help." He said the government should take more effective measures to remove the bird flu fear from public mind through media. Sohel Rana, supervisor of 'Chicken King', said they have added new items of fish, beef and vegetable to their menu apart from continuing the advocacy like Helvetia.

He also blamed the media for spreading the bird flu panic among the people. "Watching chicken culling on television and reading those in newspapers, people get panicked."

Chinese restaurants, popular among the urban middle-class people, have also reduced serving chicken and egg items. Besides, many other regular restaurants have taken chicken off their menus, replacing it with various beef and vegetable items. The avian influenza, also known as bird flu, was first detected in Bangladesh on February 22 last year. It has now reached an epidemic form, hitting the poultry industry that accounts for over 1.6 percent of GDP.

According to a government count, nearly 8.5 lakh fowls of 277 poultry farms -- 236 of them commercial and 41 backyard in 43 districts- were culled as of February 20.

Nearly 100,000 poultry farms have been shut down due to the outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus, throwing around 2.5 million people out of jobs.