Peter Richards
PORT OF SPAIN, Jan 23 2006 (IPS) – A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words. But for the majority of Trinidad and Tobago nationals, a recent photo of their health minister, John Rahael, eating a piece of chicken did not convey a reassuring message.
Some came straight to the point. I am not eating chicken again, said one writer to a newspaper, while a caller to a radio station was adamant that the chicken being eaten by the minister came from a neighbouring Caribbean island.
At the centre of the controversy is whether Trinidad and Tobago is facing an outbreak of the deadly avian influenza that has killed dozens of people in Turkey, Indonesia and other parts of Asia, or whether, as local experts say, it is nothing more than a fungal disease called aspergillosis that is responsible for the mysterious deaths of chickens on the island.
It has never been avian influenza and it is not present. With this disease, if it was present, it would be obvious to all due to the high mortality, said Dr. Stephen Johnston, director of Animal Production in the Ministry of Agriculture.
We do not import from the Asian countries any poultry products or live birds, he added.
Johnston said that the International Animal Health Organisation, based in Paris, has a list of diseases that require notification because of their economic and public health impacts, and that list is used by Trinidad and Tobago to determine how we should administer or allow importation of products from certain countries .
Both the government and the Poultry Association of Trinidad and Tobago (PATT) have taken out full-page advertisements telling consumers that chicken is safe to eat .
The recent mortality of chickens reported in the media does not represent anything unusual as loss of chickens on this scale is standard to the chicken industry worldwide, PATT said, adding, The average mortality rate on farms in Trinidad and Tobago is within the world standard of six percent.
For its part, the Trinidad and Tobago government has assured the public that poultry meats are safe for consumption and says it will continue to ensure that all foods offered for sale meet the highest quality and safety standards .
It said that the deaths on the chicken farms were a result of the fungus aspergillus that is widespread in nature, participating in decaying vegetation and compost piles .
This disease in birds cannot be transmitted to humans either occupationally or through ingestion of poultry meat and therefore poses no risk to human health, the government statement said. It noted that since 2003, active surveillance of wild birds and commercial flocks has been ongoing in Trinidad and Tobago and there has been no evidence of the presence of bird flu caused by the H5N1 virus.
Nevertheless, authorities warn consumers that birds should only be purchased from facilities maintained in a proper sanitary manner and should be healthy and well fleshed, with bright eyes and red combs and wattles .
There should be no discharges from the eyes and nostrils, the authorities warn.
But these guidelines have not eased the fears of some consumers who say the authorities are not being up front with them, particularly after it was discovered that chickens have been dying on the farms since late last year.
One newspaper said that while the authorities have instituted a crackdown on illegal trafficking in birds in a bid to prevent the entry of the bird flu virus, this may be impossible to prevent with Venezuela so close , and the avian flu having reached South America .
We want to warn the general public not to be complacent. This is a situation where an ounce of prevention is worth several tonnes of cure, Newsday said in an editorial.
The government has said that it intends to implement stiffer penalties for farms that fail to notify the relevant bodies of suspicious poultry deaths.
This is very serious and we are looking at the act governing the poultry industry, so we will know exactly who is culpable and should be held responsible, said Agriculture Minister Jarette Narine.
I want you to know that you ve committed an offence if you do not report the deaths and we are looking at the aspect of bring charges against those involved, because of their negligence in not reporting the deaths of those chickens earlier, he added.
Health authorities said that as many as 2,000 chickens might have died during the first three weeks of this month as a result of the disease, sending supermarkets and fast food restaurants into a tailspin.
The president of the Supermarkets Association of Trinidad and Tobago (SATT), Heeranand Maharaj, said that chicken sales had slowed down significantly since the reports first started appearing in the media. He said that consumers were now increasing their purchases of fish, beef, turkey, goat and vegetables.
The authorities have started culling chickens at a number of farms, and are carrying out tests at other farms that have reported the deaths of chickens in recent days.
The government said that the tests should not be construed as an indication of other outbreaks of aspergillosis, but rather, are part of the normal procedure utilised to identify possible sources of this and similar poultry diseases .
But the culling of the chickens has sparked it own share of controversy.
Former health minister Dr. Faud Khan said he was abhorred by the inhumane, barbaric and cruel manner in which the chickens were being killed. He said the birds were deposited in a bag and buried alive, leading to suffocation and then death .
I am appealing to the authorities to find a more humane approach to the problem, he said, arguing that the culling of the birds could have been prevented if the warnings last year of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) for birds to be vaccinated against bird flu had been followed. ***** +World Health Organisation outbreak info (http://www.who.int/csr/don/en/) +HEALTH: Surveillance Key to Tackling Bird Flu (https://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp? idnews=31757) +HEALTH: Fear Advances with Human Bird Flu (https://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp? idnews=31711)
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