Minister of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries Giriraj Singh spoke exclusively to The Daily Guardian on the rising cases on bird flu and how his ministry is tackling it. Excerpts:
Q: What can you tell us about the rising cases of bird flu?
A: This virus is being found around the world in many birds and poultry. This was first detected in India back in 2006 and since then, this ministry has worked with states and issued advisories about the disease.
Q: Which states are right now in the red category when it comes to bird flu?
A: We have issued advisories to all the states. We have found that ducks are being found to carry this disease in Kerala, so naturally we are keeping a close watch on that. We get regular reports from every state and we test the samples in Bhopal. After the result of the test, we work according to our strategy. We have an open website to manage this, we have set up a control room and are in constant touch with the state governments. There is no need to worry.
Q: What do people need to be careful about? Since when has your ministry started working on this?
A: People who eat meat do not need to be worried because the virus is killed when the meat is cooked. We had sent advisories and alerts to all states from October itself. We are acting according to each and every report we are getting. Our control room is on top of the situation. Again, there is no need to worry.