KARACHI/SWAT: Government officials confirmed on Monday an outbreak of the deadly bird flu virus at a second farm in Karachi and said 12 people had been placed in an isolation ward, AFP reported. The virus was discovered at a poultry farm run by security forces, three days after it was found at another farm in the port city, Agriculture and Livestock Ministry official Rafiq-ul-Hassan Usmani said.
| I would think the Pakistani Rangers would be far better occupied fighting the Taliban then rearing poultry... but that's just me. I'm no Pakistani military genius |
| I'm going to resist the obvious chicken joke ... |
“We have found H5N1 virus in the second farm too this morning,” Usmani told AFP, adding that both farms have been sealed off and officials have culled around 10,000 chickens.
A spokesman for the paramilitary Rangers force, which owns the farm, said they had alerted authorities and destroyed infected poultry and feedbags after hundreds of chickens were found dead. “We have shifted nine of our workers to a hospital and doctors are monitoring them in an isolation ward,” said the spokesman, Major Asad Ali.
Another three poultry handlers from the other farm where the virus was discovered last week have also been placed in an isolation ward at a local hospital, medical officials said. “Our doctors are observing all the farm workers and have so far found no signs of transmission of the dangerous virus in any of them,” Sindh Health Secretary Abdul Majid said.
Pakistan recorded its first death from bird flu in December when a man died in the NWFP. The victimÂ’s brother also died before being tested for the virus. |