The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Despite stepped up bio-security at farms and markets, as well as an awareness- campaign in media, bird flu continues to spread in the country.

Forty-seven out of 64 districts of the country are now affected. In the past 10 days, the number of affected upazilas and farms has increased from 107 to 124 and 196 to 220 respectively.

In Khulna, some 6,000 chickens died of avian influenza in a poultry farm in Batiaghata upazila yesterday.

Bird flu has caused an estimated Tk 5,147 crore in losses to the country's poultry sector. Each month the sector is losing Tk 828 crore, according to the estimation of the Bangladesh chapter of the World Poultry Science Association (WPSA).

About 50 per cent of the poultry farms have been closed and 25 lakh people out of the 60 lakh involved in the industry have been made jobless. In fact, many people have removed chicken and eggs from their menus altogether.

According to the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, there are about 150,000 poultry farms in the country, which produce 320,000 metric tones of meat and over five million eggs annually. Investment in the sector is estimated at close to Tk 2,000 crore, while 89 per cent of people living in rural areas rear chickens at home.

According to our Khulna correspondent, owner of Chhaya Poultry Farm Sheikh Abed Ali said the chickens started dying in his poultry farm from early Friday.

Two samples of the dead chickens were sent to Dhaka for laboratory test and the laboratory found avian influenza in the samples.

Sheikh Abed Ali said he had 8,000 chickens in his poultry farm, of which, 6,000 died till yesterday.

Deputy Commissioner SM Feroz Alam and UNO Sarafat Hossain admitted the incident and said that the administration is taking proper initiative in this regard.