The Plateau Government has closed down 62 poultry farms and destroyed more than 190,000 birds affected by bird flu across the state, an official has confirmed.

Dr Doris Bitrus, Director, Veterinary Services, in the state’s Ministry of Agriculture, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Jos that the disease had continued to spread.

She attributed that spread to the non-compensation of farmers, whose farms were affected by the disease in 2015.
“With compensation not coming, most farmers now prefer selling their sick birds to the marketers,” she said.

She explained that the disease was more prevalent in Jos South, Jos North, Jos East and Bassa local government areas of the state.
According to her, government is working toward promoting more biosafety measures to check the spread of the disease.

“But aside the issue of some farmers not keeping to biosecurity measures, I think the major reason behind the fast spread of the disease is the non-payment of compensation to farmers affected by the disease in 2015.

“In the past, farmers used to report the outbreaks, but since compensations are not forthcoming, most of them prefer to sell their sick birds to desperate marketers to cushion their loses rather than wait on government that will promise and fail.

“With such distrust, controlling or curbing further spread of the hydra-headed disease will be pretty difficult,” she said.

The director, however, said that no new case had been reported in the past two weeks.
Bitrus advised poultry farmers to adopt and maintain stringent biosecurity measures to fight diseases and protect the poultry industry. (NAN)