IVO: Bird Flu Contained in 8 Provinces

A dangerous strain of avian influenza that had spread to 15 provinces is now  under control in eight provinces.

Head of Iran Veterinary Organization Mahdi Khalaj said on Sunday that bird flu was contained in the provinces including Golestan, East Azarbaijan, Alborz, Lorestan, Qazvin, and Ardebil, IRNA reported.

“Ardebil has been clean for 44 days, and Qazvin for 35 days,” he said. 

According to the regulations, “we must declare a province clean if it remains so for 21 days or more, but given the spread of the virus, all provincial IVO departments are on standby till the end of the cold season.”

Almost six million egg-laying poultry has been culled due to the H5N8 virus. However, the chicken and egg industry has not been hit hard, he said, even though the Society of Day-Old Chicken Producers had warned last month that the situation could turn “catastrophic.”

“The government should have immediately provided the financial resources to the Iran Veterinary Organization to fight the disease to minimize the costs,” Mostafa Seyyed Mostafavi, an advisor at the society was quoted as saying by Iranian Agriculture News Agency.

“Similar outbreaks in the past have caused chicken farmers hundreds of millions of dollars in losses,” he said.

Nine habitats of wild birds, which are the virus carriers, have been identified near lagoons and wetlands, farming water storages, river banks, and dams.

The IVO takes stringent measures to check the disease every year prior to the start of the cold season. This year, 43,000 samples were taken from 1,800 areas in poultry farms, markets, and rural regions and 120,000 cellular and molecular examinations were carried out by November, when the virus broke out in seven provinces.

Different strains of bird flu have been spreading across Europe and Asia since late last year, leading to large-scale culling of poultry in certain countries and some cases of human deaths in China from H7N9, another strain of the virus.

There are many subtypes of avian influenza viruses, but only some strains of five subtypes have been known to infect humans: H5N1, H7N3, H7N7, H7N9 and H9N2.

The National Headquarters to Fight Bird Flu which meets regularly has also claimed that the situation is under control. Members of this office include First Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri, several ministers, as well as the heads of IVO, the Department of Environment, Law Enforcement Forces and the Management and Planning Organization.