Workshop for early detection of bird flu (Back Page)

Tuesday 2-06-2009

A FIVE-DAY training workshop to equip personnel of the Veterinary Service with tools for early detection and control of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI/bird flu) opened in Accra on Monday.
The workshop, organised by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), will promote swift reporting of poultry cases and strengthen the capacity of the Veterinary Service to organise a rapid field response in case of disease outbreak.
Personnel from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the USDA, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) as well as Ghana’s Veterinary Service, which is under the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), are facilitating the workshop.
Addressing the participants, the USDA’s Senior Attaché for Africa and the Middle East, Dr Linda Logan, said the workshop was aimed at partnering Ghana to maintain its HPAI disease-free status.
The last time Ghana had any incidence of bird flu was in June 2007.
Dr Logan said the other objective of the workshop was how to apply what she termed “incident command system” which is used by the US Federal Emergency Management Agency for all human and animal health emergencies as well as natural disasters such as forest fires, floods and hurricanes.
She commended Ghana for successfully combating avian influenza outbreaks in parts of the country and said the USDA had provided a great deal of support for laboratory capacity and surveillance.
In a speech read on his behalf, the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Kwesi Ahwoi, said the workshop was appropriate, considering the importance of detecting the disease early.
He pointed out that it was the early detection and diagnosis system that helped the Veterinary Service to detect and control the first case of HPAI in a small commercial farm in Kakasunaka near Tema in the Greater Accra Region.
Mr Ahwoi, however, stated that although Ghana contained the outbreak, stakeholders in the poultry industry suffered economic losses, adding that the government also had to pay GH¢166,000 to the affected farmers as compensation.
The minister expressed the hope that with the outbreak of influenza A HINI (swine flu), the participants would seize the opportunity to learn more about the disease and adequately educate the public thereafter.
The acting Director of the Veterinary Service, Dr E. B. M. Koney, said the workshop was part of the series that the service had been conducting to make its staff proactive.
He explained that some of the risk factors which threatened the re-introduction of avian influenza included biosecurity practices on poultry farms, live bird markets, feed mills and hatcheries.
He said traders in live birds and egg sellers who moved from one place to another could spread the disease.