Singapore's Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) conducted an exercise on Wednesday to test its readiness in case of a bird flu outbreak.

According to Channel NewsAsia reports, the exercise called Gallus IV involved more than 230 personnel in total, aiming to test the AVA's coordination with other agencies, and the communication effectiveness between them.

During the drill in one of Singapore's poultry farms, 540 retired layer chickens were gassed with carbon dioxide and disposed of. 5000 chickens were killed in a similar exercise in February 2004.

The reports said that it was the first time to involve 50 external cullers from poultry slaughter houses and other companies to work with the AVA's 30 cullers and 20 support staff. On the spot, the external cullers were trained on the proper use of the personal protection equipment and handling of birds.

"It has shown that we are operationally ready to handle the situation at every stage. All our personnel know exactly what to do. So I think we are in a very good position to handle the situation when it arises," Grace Fu, Minister of State for National Development told Channel NewsAsia.

In a real situation, the AVA would have more than 100 AVA cullers and 400 external cullers to draw from, according to the reports.

Source: Xinhua