National roadmap to fight bird flu released

A National roadmap to tackle any possible outbreak of bird flu in the country has been tabled by India at the three-day International Ministerial Conference on Avian and Pandemic Influenza that concluded on Thursday. The conference, held in New Delhi, was attended by representatives of 111 countries.

“Our aim is to improve the capacity of animal health systems to reduce the threat of avian influenza and to improve the capacity of human health systems to detect and respond to it,” said a senior official from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases.

Several countries came forward to contribute to contain the spread of the disease. Japan came out as the largest donor by pledging an additional $69 million over its last year’s contribution of $222 million. While France pledged an additional $7.5 million, EU would contribute $360.7 million. India, which hosted the conference, will contribute $2 million, sources said.