Poultry farmers demand audit of approach used to check bird flu outbreaks

The Greater Accra Poultry Farmers Association  says the Veterinary Service  should audit the approach it uses to tackle bird flu in the country

This follows the latest outbreak of the disease which has already left over seven hundred thousand birds dead. In order to contain its spread, the government has released 44 million Ghana cedis to manage the flu.

The outbreak comes at a time when the poultry industry is still recovering from a similar outbreak that occurred sometime in April last year and killed over 11 thousand birds aside from the shortage of maize which resulted in the near-collapse of the industry.

So far ten regions have been affected by the latest outbreak.

In an interview with Citi Business News, Board Member of the Greater Accra Poultry Farmers Association, Kwame Ntim Doudu said more effort is required to contain the spread of bird flu in the country.

“It’s a menace to the local poultry industry and we have had some discussions with the veterinary service department last week and we are going to continue with those discussions and ask why the bird flu case was first reported somewhere in May 2021 and it still lingers on some eight months down the lane. Even in November last year, we had a farmer losing about eighty thousand birds and the cost of one bird is now more than GHc20, do the maths, that’s one person’s investment gone down the drain. What we believe is that there must be stiffer measures from the veterinary services department. There should be an audit of their solutions department to find out why bird flu was first reported in May 2021 but there are still cases in January 2022. That must be checked”.

Source: Ghana Business