Say poultry products are bird-flu free

Dhangadhi, February 25:

Worried over the significant decrease in the sale of poultry products in the western terai due to the bird flu outbreak in India, local poultry entrepreneurs organised a public programme here today to encourage people to buy chicken and eggs. With the objective of assuring that poultry products were free of bird flu virus, they ate chicken and eggs. Taking note that Nepal had banned the import of poultry products from India, they informed that there is no harm in eating properly-cooked poultry products.

The programme was organised to inform people that the bird flu virus has not made inroads into Nepal and that Nepal has already banned the import of poultry products from India, central chairman of the Nepal Hatchery Industries’ Association (NHIA) and leader of the monitoring team visiting the border areas to prevent the illegal import of poultry products to Nepal from India, Kapil Babu Khanal, said.

Earlier, the team had recovered 5,000 illegally-imported white eggs at the Dhangadhi Bazaar of Kailali and destroyed them.

The Regional Animal Disease Research Centre had also raided shops at Dhangadhi and surrounding areas to check if eggs had been imported from India.

The price of chicken has gone down by Rs 10 to Rs 30 per kg in the border areas after the outbreak of bird flu in India.

The monitoring team led by Kapil Babu Khanal consists of chairman of the Feed Industry Pratap Singh Gurung, central vice-chairman of the Egg Production Association Rajendra Lamichhane, general secretary Shankar Sharma, central member Bal Ram Sapkota, and NHIA secretary Dhan Bahadur Shrestha.

The sale of chicken has decreased significantly in Kailali, Kanchanpur, Banke and Bardiya.

“Earlier, up to two quintals of chicken used to be sold daily. Following the reported outbreak of bird flu in India, the sale has gone down to 15 to 20 crates. The sale of eggs has decreased by 80 per cent,” meat seller Raju Aer of Dhangadhi said.