Fear of Bird Flu in TT —

IN the event of an outbreak of Avian Influenza (AI), the Ministry of Agriculture will offer compensation and also begin registering all small poultry producers and pluck shops, as part of its surveillance strategy.

“If there is no compensation plan in place people will move to either hide reports or sell the birds or move them when the disease occurs,” said the minstry’s Chief Veterinary Officer Dr Joseph at a media briefing last week at Ambassador Hotel at the end of a three-day Joint Meeting on Animal Disease Surveillance Preparedness, which focused on AI.

He said the Poultry Surveillance Unit (PSU) will begin registration within two weeks, noting it is also working on a system of compensation for farmers who lose their birds to culling.

The PSU will be doing active and passive surveillance, but Ryan said all farms could not be visited. He appealed for the public to assist with surveillance by reporting any dead or sick birds seen.

The poultry surveillance will also include samples being taken from wild birds. TT has placed a ban on nonessential birds.

Ryan said the ministry has identified strategies to deal with AI, including exclusion by regulating imports, surveillance for early detection and developing the capabilities of laboratories.

Ryan said compensation was a key component of TT’s emergency plan. He said it was internationally recognised that getting people to report any diseases, which resulted in the culling of their entire flock, there must be a system to deal with the losses incurred.

“At the end of it all we must be able to compensate our farmers adequately and quickly,” he said.

Ryan said the guidelines for compensation were still being worked out. He said important to this initiative was having all poultry producers registered and ensuring they adopt certain biosafety measures which were important for preventing AI.

Ryan said TT had a “well developed” illegal trade in birds. He said the illegal trade was a threat because it is one of the ways AI could be brought to TT.