From Bhadra Gogoi
Dimapur: The Nagaland Directorate of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services on Thursday issued an advisory for preparedness, control and containment of avian influenza in the State.
The directorate issued the advisory to the public and district officers of the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services for coordinated efforts and containment measures against avian influenza following recent ingress of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in the country, especially in Kerala, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.
Stating that avian influenza is caused by H5N8, an Influenza Type- A virus, it asked the public to report unusual sickness and mortality of poultry birds, ducks, pet birds to the nearest Veterinary Health Centre.
The directorate also urged the people not to handle and consume such poultry birds, ducks that have died suddenly. However, it is safe to consume healthy poultry birds, ducks, turkeys, etc, it said.
It directed the poultry owners not to mix outside (unknown source) live poultry birds, ducks into his/her stock to prevent transmission of diseases.
The poultry entrepreneurs, farmers and businessmen importing eggs, day-old chicks/ducklings, live birds/ducks, etc into the State have been asked to mandatorily produce the state of their origin and refrain from importing such stocks from the diseased outbreak and its neighbouring states.
The directorate asked all the chief veterinary officers (CVOs) to issue “red alert” notice to all the subordinate officers, field officers, staff and village functionaries on the ingress of the disease in the country and impress upon the strong disease reporting system within the respective district through education and communication campaign and familiarise the public about the risk of avian influenza to the human population.
All the CVOs have also been directed to coordinate with the Forest and Wild Life Department on the status of wild birds. Those CVOs having water bodies in their districts and being visited by migratory birds need to be extra vigilant, the directorate said.
Asking the CVOs to activate their existing Rapid Response Team (RRT) with any changes required due to transfer/retirement of team members and reconstitute the team, it said all RRTs are to have direct connection with the grassroots level for two-way communication.
All the CVOs have further been directed to contact the control room in the directorate office for avian influenza for related matters and also ELISA Laboratory, Kohima, for further surveillance and sample collection.
