Take urgent measures against bird flu
Photo: STAR
Again bird flu is spreading throughout the country and the situation is worsening day by day. A recent report of this daily on this matter says that over the past years since 2007, half of nearly 150,000 poultry farms have been facing losses due to bird flu attacks, forcing tens of thousands of people out of jobs. However, this new attack of bird flu reduces the weekly production of day-old chicks to 46 lakh in the last three months from 91 lakh a year ago. In the wake of fall of farming, prices of broiler chicken and egg rose about 22 and 32 percent respectively. The government statistics on bird flu attacks that there are only 12 cases of outbreaks at 17 commercial poultry farms since the beginning of 2012 do not reflect the reality. So what types of measures are taken by the government can be understood from this statistics. But we need to know the real statistics for conducting regular vaccination, which is the only way to overcome the crisis. Though most poultry farmers refrain from reporting the outbreak of this disease to the authorities due to the delays and hassles in getting compensation from the government but they should not do that for the greater interest of the nation. We urge the government to do the needful soon for conducting comprehensive bird flu vaccination and ensure sufficient supply of broiler chicken and egg in the market for stopping its irrational price hike.
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