MP may bar hotels from serving non-veg food
SOURCES SAID a decision to resume chicken imports from southern states would be taken after reviewing the bird flu situation in these states after 10 days.
Madhya Pradesh government on Wednesday imposed a ban on chicken imports from southern states for 10 days in view of avian flu scare in the state.
Official sources here said the state government was seriously contemplating to bar hotels and restaurants in the state from serving nonvegetarian food if the bird flu took the form of an epidemic form in the state.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan convened an emergency official meeting here to take stock of the situation in the wake of the reports of death of at least 400 crows and some other avian species in various parts of the state in the last couple of weeks.
“Avian flu has been detected in chicken in Kerala and some other southern states. We have taken a decision not to allow transportation of chickens from these southern states to MP for
10 days”, Chouhan told reporters here.
Official sources said a decision to resume chicken imports from southern states would be taken after reviewing the bird flu situation in these states after 10 days.
Chouhan said there was no cause for worry in MP since random inspections of poultries in the state has indicated that
H5N8, called in common parlance as bird flu, has not been detected in chickens in the state so far. “We are keeping a strict vigil on the situation”, he said.
Earlier at the
review meeting, the Chief Minister ordered the authorities concerned to take precautionary measures to protect the poultries from the avian flu and step up vigil to prevent bird flu from taking epidemic form in the state.
He also directed the district collectors to remain in touch with poultry farm owners in their respective areas to ensure that they enforced guidelines issued by the Centre in their farms in view of outbreak of the disease.
Meanwhile, presence of H5N8 virus (a variant of avian influenza or bird flu) was found in the carcasses of crows in Mandsaur and Agar Malwa districts, an official said, citing test results of samples sent for laboratory analysis. A total of 155 dead crows in Indore have been found with the H5N8 virus since the pathogen was first detected in the state’s commercial hub a week back.