Sales of chickens down Kathmandu Valley

The sales of chickens have decreased by 20 percent to 50 percent in Kathmandu Valley in Nepal following the epidemic of bird flu was identified in India, an official said here Tuesday.

Major cities witnessed sharper decline in sales compared to small cities as the large number of media spread the news on bird flu, Pradeep Khanal, general secretary of the Nepal Hatchery Association (NHA), told reporters.

"We are going to take an unanimous decision on how to tackle the fear of the bird flu and its spread in Nepal soon," Khanal said.

Khanal also urged the media to report the news positively so that the promising sector would not lose heavily.

"The information based on scientific evidence should be conveyed," he said.

Sri Krishna Ghimire, a proprietor of the Valley Cold Store, said that they experienced a decrease by 10 percent in the sales of chicken meat. "We are not sure what would be the scenario of sales in the future," he said.

The Nepali government has paced up prevention efforts, said officials.

The government has already decided to stop importing all types of poultry products from India and strengthened monitoring in the quarantine check posts, said Asheshwor Jha, spokesperson at the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperative.

He said that migratory birds were less likely to spread this epidemic in Nepal because most of such birds had already returned from Nepal and some were on the process of returning.

"However, we are on the alert to keep them under strict surveillance," he added.

Total investment in poultry sector reached 17 billion Nepali rupees (242.85 million US dollars) in the country, and 10,000 families are directly involved in the business, according to NHA.

Source: Xinhua