Jordan Times - 03/05/2006
AMMAN — Although the country was declared free of the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus last month, a recent World Health Organisation (WHO) report has classified Jordan among the high-risk countries with regard to the avian flu.
The government declared the country free of bird flu mid-April after no new cases had been reported 21 days after the virus was first detected in the Ajloun Governorate in late March.
WHO classified Jordan as a high-risk country as more cases of the avian flu are being discovered in neighbouring countries such as Egypt, Iraq and Israel, Khalid Abu Rumman, spokesperson of the technical committee, told The Jordan Times yesterday.
In addition, the WHO report said citizens still breed birds in their houses, which strengthens the possibility of detecting new cases of the disease in the country, Abu Rumman added.
"Although inspectors from the concerned authorities have culled thousands of birds so far and are trying to convince people to get rid of homebred poultry, there are still those who raise various kinds of birds in their backyards," he said.
Authorities have culled more than 15,000 homebred birds in the Jordan Valley as part of a campaign to prevent an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus.
Ministry of Agriculture Secretary General for Livestock Affairs Faisal Awawdeh told The Jordan Times last week that the campaign, which targets homebred chickens, ducks and turkeys, has suffered some delays as authorities have had to convince citizens of the area that the cull is a necessary health measure.
"For many of the people in the area, breeding chickens is their only source of livelihood and therefore they are naturally unwilling at first to agree to the measure, even though they know it is in their health interests," Awawdeh said.
The government announced its intention last month to compensate families whose birds are subject to the cull, which began after the virus was detected in the Beqaot Settlement in the West Bank and will continue until authorities have culled a total of 50,000 birds.
Meanwhile, Abu Rumman said the technical committee yesterday lifted a ban on the hunting of wild boars. [Cool.]
He also said a new shipment of tamiflu is expected to arrive in the country in August.
The committee, however, stressed that the situation was under control as the Ministry of Agriculture was following up on inspections of poultry farms and the testing of birds.
The H5N1 virus is known to have infected 204 people worldwide since it first re-emerged in South Korea in December 2003, killing 113 mostly in Asia, according to the WHO.
Authorities around the world have so far culled 200 million birds.
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