Government pledges to be open on bird flu

Star: The public will get prompt and honest answers to the way the Government is dealing with the bird flu threat.
“The Cabinet has stressed the importance of being transparent so that no one can question the integrity of our actions and the tests that we carry out,” Agriculture and Agro-Based Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin told a joint conference with Health Minister Datuk Seri Chua Soi Lek at the end of the second meeting of the inter-ministerial committee to prepare for the avian influenza at his office yesterday.
The meeting, he said, also discussed contingency plans to be put in place should the bird flu infection spread to Malaysia.
Among options being considered, he said, was the banning of chicken slaughter in wet markets if that practice was found to contribute to the spread of the disease.
Muhyiddin said some of the options being considered, like tighter enforcement on poultry farms and slaughterhouses would not go down well with industry players, but “when it comes to life and death situations, business will have to take a back seat”.
The situation, he said, would be considered critical only when about 25% of the country’s estimated 160 million birds became infected. He will seek RM103mil to compensate farmers in the event their poultry is culled.
The Government, he said, had also allocated RM13mil to improve the Veterinary Research Institute’s capacity to produce bird flu vaccine for local use.
Dr Chua said his ministry had asked for RM60mil more to stock up enough antiviral drugs for at least 5% of the country’s population.