RIYADH, 12 June 2007 — Municipal authorities are to shut down all 385 stores that slaughter live poultry in Riyadh as a precautionary measure to contain the spread of bird flu and other diseases, an official from the municipality announced yesterday.
Soliman Al-Buthi, general manager of the Directorate General of the Environmental Health Department in the Riyadh Municipality, said the decision would be implemented on July 26.
“All live poultry outlets will be shut down starting from this date,” he told Arab News, adding that in the past few weeks the municipality has already stopped issuing licenses to set up live poultry stores. He added that live poultry shops would be given an ultimatum to close their businesses before the specified date or face forced closure.
The measures are part of necessary precautions being taken through a joint decision made by the Riyadh Municipality, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Health to stop the spread of bird flu in the capital.
“The Ministry of Agriculture receives reports on bird flu, while our role is to determine the location of the report in the city. The Ministry of Health’s role is to later take samples,” said Al-Buthi.
Live poultry stores are used by those who wish to purchase fresh chicken that has been slaughtered in front of them in the Islamic way. The stores give customers the opportunity of choosing the size and shape of chickens before slaughtering.
The official noted that the municipality has brought together teams from all of the municipality’s 14 branches to inspect the 385 live poultry stores operating in the capital. The teams were tasked with the job of looking for bird flu symptoms as well as to record cases of dead poultry and obtain samples for research. “The inspections were made three times a day: morning, afternoon and evening, including during the weekends,” said Al-Buthi.
In addition to the health conditions of the birds, inspection teams took note of health violations by sellers, the cleanliness of cages, the hygienic environment and whether sellers were in possession of licenses or not. Al-Buthi said that following inspections all of the stores produced negative results and that the decision to close stores was a precautionary one.
He also said that in addition to inspections of poultry stores, municipality teams visited restaurants, which slaughter live animals and cook their meat in underground stoves.
Health Minister Hamad Al-Manei told Arab News recently that there was “no bird flu outbreak” in Saudi Arabia. He said cases reported in the Eastern Province were due to birds migrating across the Kingdom’s borders.
Avian influenza (also called bird flu) is a virus that infects birds. Bird flu can cause widespread illnesses and death among birds, though there are many different strains, which vary in strength. Bird flu was first detected in humans in 1997 in Hong Kong, where it infected both chickens and people. This was the first time the avian influenza virus had ever been found to jump directly from birds to humans. During this outbreak, 18 people were hospitalized and six people died. To control the outbreak 1.5 million chickens were culled. In 1997 it was discovered that the virus could occasionally infect people, who have been in close contact with live birds in markets or farms.
Since then there have been several other outbreaks, the most recent in Asia beginning in late 2003. Countries affected included Indonesia, Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, Cambodia and Japan.
Bird flu spreads through the saliva, nasal secretions and feces of infected animals. The only way to stop its spread is to cull infected birds, as no medical cure has yet been developed for human treatment.
Since the 2003 outbreak of bird flu, nearly 60 percent of infected people have died. As of this year, 307 people have caught the infection as a result of close and direct contact with infected birds. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) 186 of these people have subsequently died. With 79 deaths from 99 human cases, including 22 this year, Indonesia has the world’s highest death toll from bird flu.
