Bird flu defenses fortified
The government has set up local emergency response centers across the country to avert an outbreak of bird flu, Agricultural Development Minister Evangelos Bassiakos said yesterday as local government officials started cooperating with their Turkish and Bulgarian counterparts to curb the spread of the virus. «We will be in close contact in order to tackle any problem arising due to the outbreak of bird flu in Turkey,» Bassiakos said following a meeting with regional prefects. The role of emergency response units will be to safeguard against bird flu by enforcing existing measures but also to contain a possible outbreak of the virus, Bassiakos said. Local government officials also agreed to intensify inspections to ensure poultry breeders are keeping their birds indoors so they do not come into contact with migratory birds that could be carrying the virus. Inspections at border posts and airports will also be boosted and informative seminars are to be held for farmers and hunters. Bassiakos, who also spoke with poultry breeders, stressed that home-reared poultry was completely safe to eat, if properly cooked. The head of the Agricultural Development Ministry’s special committee for bird flu was also reassuring, but wary. «The chances of the virus mutating and being transferable from human to human are small,» he told Kathimerini. «The risk of our birds catching the (bird) flu will be significantly reduced in 10 days when migratory birds will have gone,» he said. «But the folly of one visitor could prove to be fatal,» he added. Meanwhile regional governors from across the country, who met in the northeastern town of Xanthi late on Thursday, said they would be in daily contact with their Turkish and Bulgarian neighbors to put up a more effective defense against bird flu. Veterinary laboratories across the country yesterday continued to examine suspect bird samples, none of which have tested positive for bird flu so far. The Health Ministry reiterated yesterday that it had sufficient quantities of antiviral medicines to deal with an outbreak of bird flu, should one occur. «We have 200,000 boxes of Simetrel and… have ordered 450,000 boxes of Tamiflu,» a ministry statement said.
