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8 more bird flu suspects surface(The Times of India Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: The Centre on Tuesday scrambled to stem the spiralling panic over bird flu instructing ministries not to fuel the concern. At a meeting of the CCEA, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his senior colleagues decided to get the railways and Indian Airlines lift the ban on serving chicken and eggs. The decision came as different wings of the government appeared to be pulling in different directions. Earlier in the day, the health and animal husbandry ministers declared: "Sunday ho ya Monday, roz khao chicken aur ande." The armed forces have declared war to ensure the new enemy does not silently infiltrate into their ranks. Among the largest institutional consumers poultry products, the three Services have virtually suspended fresh procurement of poultry and eggs as ration for their personnel as a "precautionary measure" till further orders. For another, the Railways have decided to ban serving of chicken dishes and eggs from any railway catering unit. Instructions to this effect have already been issued to all zonal railways and to Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd (IRCTC). A typical case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing? The health and animal husbandry ministries, have now written to both the Railway Board and the civil aviation ministry to re-introduce serving chicken and eggs on their menu for passengers. At the press conference, too, the message was that it was perfectly safe to consume both chicken and eggs, provided they were cooked above 70 degree centigrade, which kills the H5N1 virus strain. Well, it will certainly take a lot of doing to dispel the panic.Within a day of bird flu striking India, for instance, airlines also stopped serving chicken to their passengers. The sailors in the Navy, the smallest of the three Services with only around 55,000 personnel, for instance, consume around 48 metric tonne of chicken and 2.70 lakh eggs per month at their three commands at Mumbai, Vizag and Kochi. "Fresh procurement of poultry and eggs have now been suspended at the three naval commands," said an officer. Though mutton is the "authorised item of ration" for soldiers in the 1.13-million strong Army, roughly around 120,000-kg of chicken is consumed every week by the troops. The six Army commands have got instructions to be wary of the bird flu. Meanwhile, in fresh suspected cases of bird flu, eight persons were admitted to a hospital in Nawapur even as health workers culled more than 1.5 lakh chickens and destroyed an equal number of eggs on Tuesday. The new patients with symptoms of suspected avian influenza were admitted to isolation ward of the sub-district hospital on Monday following the door-todoor medical check, taking the total number of patients under observation in the ward to 11. The blood samples of these people were sent to National Institute of Virology in Pune for testing and reports are expected in three days, he added. |