PAAFR: Kuwait free of bird flu

12/27/2008 5:05:00 PM

KUWAIT, Dec 27 (KUNA) -- The Public Authority for Agriculture Affairs and Fish Resources reiterated here on Saturday that it has taken a number of measures as part of a contingency plan to prevent and respond to bird flu. It said in a statement that the measures include increasing the number of survey teams and the early detection of the disease in all regions as well as organizing wide-scale campaigns on the shops selling live birds. The measures also include monitoring the health status of all birds in commercial poultry farms in particular farms that had been hit by the disease earlier and re-operated at full capacity under the supervision of the Authority. The statement pointed out that the Authority, in cooperation with the concerned international organizations, particularly the World Organization for Animal Health, are working to determine the status of the global epidemic of bird flu in all the countries of the world in order to make decisions governing the import and export of birds from these countries. It pointed out that all lab tests that have been conducted on a number of samples of poultry taken from a number of areas in the country have shown they were free of the bird flu virus.