Nepali officials have urged people not to panic saying that the bird flu virus hasn’t entered into the country as yet and that the government is doing its best to prevent the outbreak of the epidemic.

A poultry worker in Kathmandu using a mask after a government alert and news of the outbreak of the bird flu in neighboring India, Tuesday, Feb 21 06. nepalnews.com/rh

Addressing an interaction organized at the Reporters’ Club of Nepal in the capital, Kathmandu, on Tuesday, Minister for Agriculture and Cooperatives Keshar Bahadur Bista said the government was maintaining extreme caution and that the dreaded H5N1 virus had not been detected in Nepal as yet.

He, however, admitted that there was lack of skilled manpower and doctors and retroviral drugs to effectively check the outbreak of the disease in the country. The government is going to unveil an ambitious plan to protect people from such epidemic, he said.

Minister of State for Health, Mani Lama, said the government had made all necessary preparations to prevent the outbreak of the epidemic. “We have already set up two detecting machines and one more will be set up soon,” he added.

Director at the Animal Health Directorate Dr Dhan Raj Ratala said they had not found any evidence of bird flu virus in the country after conducting more than 800 tests across the country. Tests are conducted in 24 quarantine posts in borders including Tatopani in Sindhupalchowk district, which borders Tibet, to check possible outbreak of the disease.

President of Nepal Hatcheries Association (NHA), Guna Chandra Bista urged media not to sensationalise the news reports related to bird flu without facts saying that it could harm the Rs 18 billion poultry industry in the country and some 62,000 workers affiliated with it. He said that sales of poultry had gone down by some 10 percent in Kathmandu due to “bad publicity.”

Officials, entrepreneurs and journalists tasted roasted chicken during the crowded press conference in front of TV cameras to spread the message that consuming chicken was not hazardous in the country as the bird flu virus was yet to make inroads into the country.

The government on Sunday appealed to poultry importers not to import poultry and poultry products from neighboring India where an outbreak of the bird flu had been reported. n