# 2922
For two years now Bangladesh has been fighting a mostly losing battle against the H5N1 virus. We started hearing about outbreaks in the Spring of 2007, and by the end of that year, more than half the nation’s districts had reported the virus.
The most recent filing with the OIE showed 309 outbreaks of the virus around the country over the past two years. It would be fair to say the virus is well entrenched throughout Bangladesh.
Although the number of new outbreaks appears to have slowed, the effects on local poultry farmers are far from over. Many have gone out of business due to their losses, despite some government compensation.
These losses not only affect the poultry farmers, they drive the price of food up for the inhabitants of an already impoverished nation.
This report from The Financial Express.
Our Correspondent
KHULNA, Mar 22: The effect of avian influenza infection and lack of adequate from the government to help rescue the industry from the crisis have forced almost half of this region's poultry farms to close down.
Khulna Poultry Firms Owners Association (KPFOA) leaders said the poultry sector has incurred a Tk 85 million loss in the past two years when about hundred of thousand people involved in poultry farming lost their jobs. However, the government has given Tk 1.0 million 29 thousand as compensation among 229 poultry farmers in this area.
Abdul Mabud, a poultry farmer of Raghunathpur village under Dumuria upazila, told this correspondent that he lost around 2,500 layer birds due ird flu in 2007. 'But I am yet to get any help from any bank in resuming my business.'
Meanwhile, the prices of broiler meat and eggs have shot up, going well beyond the purchasing capacity of the low-income people. At present, broiler sales at Tk 140-150 a kilogramme and an egg at Tk 7.0.
The farms produce about 0.4 million eggs a day on an average and send at least 0m, million eggs to other districts, the association sources said. Khulna farmers also supply meat to different districts every day.
The exorbitant prices of local day-old chicks, broiler and eggs are spurring smuggling of poor-quality chicks, broiler and eggs from India, posing a serious threat of bird flu infection in the country, alleged KPFOA leaders.
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