Bird flu ban no more than a joke

[Shannon Bennett]

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Bird flu ban no more than a joke</ARTTITLE>
8 Feb 2008, 0256 hrs IST

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Saikat Ray & Prithvijit Mitra

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TNN

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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top align=left>KOLKATA: Missing the egg on your breakfast plate? Step into any para in the city - even the posh Park Street or the area around the state's seat of power - and you can gorge on chicken and egg to your heart's content. The ban on the sale of poultry products is no more than a joke.

A full 48 hours after the state announced a blanket ban on the sale of chicken and eggs all over Bengal to stop the spread of bird flu, omelettes and chicken rolls are making brisk business across the length and breadth of the city. Forget remote rural areas, the government has failed to enforce the ban in its own backyard.

Food vendors selling chicken curry and egg preparations are doing roaring business on the pavements near Writers' Buildings and in front of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation headquarters. Pizza and burger outlets, like KFC, are chock-o-block for most of the day. So are street corner roll shops.

At KFC's Park Street outlet, where hot favourites like Zinger Burger, chicken snacker and bucket chicken were notching up big sales, the authorities claimed they have neither received any order to refrain from selling cooked chicken nor has it been made clear to them if they fell under the ban.

"There is a lot of ambiguity in the order. They have not specified if selling chicken in a cooked form is prohibited. Unless we receive a direction we shall not close down," said a spokesperson.

A specific order seems unlikely because even animal resource development minister Anisur Rahaman - who announced the ban - does not have a clear answer to this. When TOI approached him on Thursday, he insisted that the ban was on "all poultry items" but refused to specify if it included cooked products.

"Where will they get their supply from if there is a ban? There is, of course, no ban on consumption of chicken or eggs," Rahaman said. KFC officials said they gets supplies from "local sources" but make sure the product is "certified".

Roadside food vendors aren't bothered about quality control. They don't ask where the eggs come from so long as they come. And they hardly know anything about what temperature to cook egg and chicken in to reduce the risk of bird flu.

Take the case of Avijit Manna, a roadside snack bar owner. When we caught him frying eggs at Sealdah, Manna looked unmoved. "I still have steady customers. I have managed to keep my shop open because of a steady supply of eggs," Manna said. "If the government wants us to stop selling boiled eggs or omelettes, why doesn't it block the supply line?"

Tapas Ghosh of Bidhan Sarani echoed Manna: "Egg rolls, sandwiches and chowmein are still selling like hot cakes. And no, I don't have problems buying eggs from the market."

Ashok Maity who sells rolls and egg-toast at India Exchange Place, a stone's throw from Writers' Buildings, however, is cautious. He knows about the ban but runs his business "under cover". "After all, it's a question of earning my bread and butter," Maity said.

When asked about the open flouting of the ban, mayor Bikash Bhattacharya argued that it was very difficult for corporation officials to keep a vigil in "every nook and corner of the city". "Our officials have raided major municipal markets and served notices banning the sale of poultry products. If someone sells chicken or egg in some para, what can we do," Bhattacharya asked.



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[tropical]

Re: Bird flu ban no more than a joke

Beside the wilderness, anyone can observed the second way of bird flu spreading ...

If OIE Dr. Vallat was right, nothing will happen to the "eaters" of properly cooked meat (only to the cooks). The masses will consume cooked infected chicken meat, and nothing will happen (we hope) - if it's an animal illness only.

 

[Shannon Bennett]

Re: Bird flu ban no more than a joke

No, it won't kill anyone who eats the chicken if it does reach the right cooking temperature. But whoever kills the bird, whoever plucks the bird and whoever prepares then cooks the bird will most certainly be at risk. I wonder how many poor people have bleach in their kitchens to sterilize surfaces after being touched by raw chicken? There comes a point when cavalierly suggesting that cooking the chicken will eliminate the virus but forgets the bird doesn't magically cook itself, is at a minimum, misguided.

 

[Amish Country]

Re: Bird flu ban no more than a joke

Beside the wilderness, anyone can observed the second way of bird flu spreading ...

I cannot speak to other countries but in the US it is common to share farm equipment from farm to farm. With the cost of equipment, maintainance and its habit of breaking down when needed most this can happen regardless of the size of the farm.

Here are some hypothetical situations I foresee (I hope I'm wrong):

If a farmer's tractor, front end loader, manure spreader, skid loader, etc. is out of commission borrowing one from the farm down the road is a common practice. For one hypothetical scenario a farmer from farm A, feeds his chickens that may have been infected from a wild bird getting into the coop from a nest hole in a sofit opening, thru a screen hole or door propped open or improperly processed feed, the farmer, with infected manure on his boots then and jumps onto a borrowed tractor to return to farm B. The farmer at farm B uses his just returned tractor and then tracks infected manure into his coop. With the Mega sized chicken coops today this could mean thousands of chickens per coop. With multiple mega coops....

Ever go to a feed mill or feed warehouse? It is almost impossible to keep wild birds out of them. The doors have to be big enough to accommodate trucks. Wild birds getting in to where grain is commonly spilt? It is like putting milk in front of a cat. One bird dies as the feed is being ground and it ends up ground into the feed and dozens of poultry farms in and area could be infected.

Then again have you ever read what actually goes into chicken feed? If they use the poultry by products as a protein enhancer, ground bones add calcium. If the by products were from a country with infected poultry and it was not processed correctly (the virus not fully killed).... Remember JIT? This virus can hang around under the right conditions for a while....

Getting rid of manure is another issue. If fresh infected manure is spread on a field or is liquefied and escapes a containment tank or area and it gets onto a road or in an area traveled by feed trucks or farm equipment, there could be potential problems. The bigger the spill the bigger the potential problem. Accidents happen. Feed trucks could spread the infected manure to other farms in their delivery area. This could cover multiple counties or states.

National Geographic magazine a while back did a map of the continental US showing how mega sized chicken farms basically surrounded most if not all large cities and megalopolises in the US.

Some here may think I'm silly raising my own poultry with the possibility of an avian flu pandemic. At least I know what my birds are eating and drinking, how they are cared for and who and what has access to them. As to manure I plan to put it in a nice pile mixed with top soil and organic bedding, cover it with a layer of mulch and let it "cook" for a year or two and then spread it on my garden. I plan to leave my muck boots (Wellingtons?) outside the house so no manure can be tracked in.